Encased within a bell jar, it becomes an object of admiration, frozen in an idealized state. Yet, for all its stillness, it is not permanent. In response to the gaze of the viewer, the petals break apart, scattering in a fleeting moment of dissolution before reforming once more. The cycle repeats, creating an ongoing tension between preservation and transformation. Beyond the glass, a Morpho Helena butterfly flutters freely—unbound, ephemeral, always in motion.

“We place nature on a pedestal, preserving its beauty while keeping it at a distance. But in doing so, do we celebrate it, or do we confine it?” - Dominic Harris

A recurring motif in Dominic Harris’s work, the butterfly serves as a counterpoint to the rose’s confinement, embodying nature as it exists in its truest form: alive, unpredictable, and uncontained.
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Harris reflects on humanity’s relationship with nature through this piece—how it is admired, preserved, and sometimes constrained. The rose remains flawless because it is out of reach, yet its greatest moment of beauty is also its moment of undoing. As the petals fall and reassemble, The Captive Grace invites contemplation on balance: between admiration and interference, between the organic and the artificial, and between what is meant to be preserved and what is meant to exist in motion.

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