It’s been quite a week. For starters, I got to see an impressively beautiful and joyous exhibition named Sunflowers in the Edinburgh Gallery at the Bermuda Society of Arts. I also met the artist, Carmen Domarco.

Although Domarco has been living in our midst some eight years, with several solo exhibitions and an extensive exhibitions record, I somehow missed much of her artistic activity.

Although we had occasionally met, probably at exhibition openings with my seeing individual examples of her art from time to time, her current solo exhibition is the first one I have seen, where there is a significant number of works, together as a group.

Her current exhibition is, ostensibly, about sunflowers which are beautiful, of course, but in this case, there is more to his show than initially meets the eye. Her sunflowers, while attractive, are also useful as analogies of other forms in nature, from corals to galaxies and so much more.

Domarco began developing this exhibition by first paintings images of sunflowers, which were then photographed and downloaded onto a computer.

The artist then manipulated and refined each image in preparation for printing. The final product was mostly printed by Loris Toppan at Frameworks. One print was produced in Munich, Germany.

This is a brief description of the process that went into the production of the show, however, I am also aware that for some, the use of a computer to manipulate the image in preparation for printing is questionable. They question its credibility as art.

In the history of western art, however, artists have frequently made use of mechanical devices to facilitate their artistic expressions. It is said that such as Vermeer, Canaletto, Ingres and others made use of a camera lucida in drawing, or painting. We know that Degas made use of the photographs of Muybridge, who is known for photographing humans and animals in motion. In Degas’s case, it was the depiction of running horses. Even Picasso supposedly was made aware of Einstein’s theory of relativity in ways he could understand, in his development of cubism.

Whatever tool it takes to achieve an artist’s intention, is in my estimation, valid.

In speaking with Domarco, she mentioned the Fibonacci sequence as seen, for example in the heart of sunflowers. She also spoke of her interest in astronomy and the similarities between sunflowers and galaxies.

She especially mentioned the Sunflower Galaxy, which was new to me. We also spoke of atomic structures as spinning in ways similar to galaxies. In fact, just about everything is in some way spinning, even the universe is spinning, it is now thought. She also saw similarities in the spinning of hurricanes and tornadoes.

Domarco, who comes from Seville, says her home in Spain was surrounded by fields of sunflowers. She also references Vincent van Gogh and his sunflower paintings as an inspiration. She said of Seville that everything moves there in relation to music.

Quoting from Domarco’s website, she wrote: “My latest paintings and prints portray flowers and plants of Bermuda against backgrounds of starscapes and fields of colour intended to capture and evoke the connection between the cosmos and terrestrial beauty that surrounds us and the sense of awe and wonder that arises within us as we live and experience it.

This is a deeply thoughtful exhibition that I highly recommend.

• The Edinburgh Gallery at Bermuda Society of Arts is in City Hall, Hamilton, and entry is free of charge. The exhibition continues through May 6, 2025, and the BSoA is open to the public on weekdays from 10am to 4pm