It’s hard to miss artist Christina Selby’s devotion to ecology as you sit in her small studio on the southern edge of town. The humble space is lined floor-to-ceiling with photography gear, well-thumbed wildlife texts and the results of her recent dive into botanical art, a natural extension of her lifelong study of the land. Selby’s newest creative venture Eufloria draws on the scientific practice of pressing plants, transforming specimens into minimalist, aesthetically rich pieces she hopes will invite viewers toward a deeper appreciation of local ecosystems and our responsibility to care for them. And select pieces are hanging at the downtown Ohori’s as we speak for the ongoing show (505 Cerrillos Road, (505) 982-9692).
Selby’s ecologically informed art grows out of a lifetime spent in environmental stewardship. Long before she turned to botanical work, she worked as a photographer, journalist, researcher, educator and documentarian. Her path is shaped by a bachelor’s degree in ecology, evolution and animal behavior, plus her master’s in environment and community. Through every stage of her career, one value has stayed constant: a deep commitment to understanding the natural world, and to our responsibility as its caretakers.
Courtesy Christine Selby
In some ways, this has taken Selby far beyond the studio. She helped document the search for a monkey species once thought extinct in the Amazon, spent time with Brazilian ranchers working to preserve rainforests and followed conservation stories across the Rio Grande Valley. She also co-founded the environmental-education nonprofit Earth Care, and later produced Saving Beauty, a feature-length documentary on rare plants. Selby’s decades in science, education and field reporting now surface in quieter ways. Her botanical pieces aren’t meant to instruct so much as to invite, using beauty as an opening rather than a directive.
“What I’m trying to do is open the door with something beautiful and enchanting,” she explains, “just to get people to pay a little more attention to nature.”
Her process mirrors her personal philosophy. In the studio, she works slowly and deliberately, using only what’s abundant and ecologically appropriate to collect. Each specimen is pressed with scientific care by drawing moisture from flora through layers of absorbent paper and arranging them into their final forms before they stiffen. Through this process, Selby notes, she encourages each piece to hold its vibrancy as long as possible. The resulting one-of-a-kind works reflect a reverence for the quiet beauty around us, and they also serve as subtle reminders of what can slip away when we lose sight of our place within the larger living world.
One piece from her Greenest Branch collection features a single Canadian violet leaf, pressed flat against handmade watercolor paper and mounted on a soft blue backing. Selby collected it in the Jemez Mountains, where the plant grows in the shaded understory of the Southern Rockies. In her hands, the leaf becomes both specimen and symbol. The collection is inspired by the medieval nun and polymath Hildegard of Bingen’s idea of viriditas—the greening power that moves through everything alive. Even in its dried form, the violet seems to hold a trace of that vitality. Mounted in a natural wood frame and prepared with herbarium standards, the piece reflects the quiet devotion Selby brings to the landscapes that shape northern New Mexico.
Selby returns often to the idea of attention. In her view, the simple act of looking closely can shift how people move through the world, even if the shift is small.
“I think one of the biggest things is that people just need to pay more attention to nature.” she says. “That will lead us in a good way.”
In her view, taking the time to stop and recognize the simple beauty of the natural world is the first step toward recognizing our place in it. In a time where attention is an increasingly precious resource, Eufloria aims to be an accessible hook capturing the focus of viewers in hopes of guiding them toward a more sustainable future. This emphasis on sustainability extends to Selby’s collection process. She collects only what is abundant, for example, and each plant is pressed only following consideration for the effect of its absence. In this way her standards extend beyond the archival and into a certain honor for the plants themselves. Each piece subverts the egotism of busy, over-the-top composition and centers the natural beauty of the plants with minimal background and handwritten labeling. For Selby, the act of collection is an accessible means of fostering a relationship to the landscape while keeping the ecosystem’s needs at the center of the process.
Santa Fe shapes her work as much as any formal training. When she talks about what draws her into the mountains and foothills, the scale of the region’s biodiversity is the first thing she mentions.
“I mean, there’s such a diversity here,” she says. “There are 4,000 species of plants—a third of those are wildflowers, and you’ve got everything from the desert to the treeless alpine.”
Such scope provides Selby with a lifetime of potential material, but it also deepens her sense of responsibility to the land.
Eufloria is slated to hang at Ohori’s until at least January, and at its heart lies the intersection of ecology, aesthetics and environmentalism. Selby’s pressed plant pieces offer beauty first and meaning second, trusting that one might lead to the other if viewers take the time to observe. Each work acts as a record and reminder, a fragment of place preserved on paper. Driven by the idea that paying attention to our world still matters, Selby asks us not only to admire the world around us, but to recognize ourselves within it.
For more info, visit eufloriabotanicart.com
