S T I L L -LI F E
Flower Power Manu Torres uses plants as a means of self-expression.
@UUNNAAMM
By TIFFANY JOW Photograph by MANU TORRES
WHEN ASKED HOW HE DEVELOPS IDEAS FOR HIS FANTASTICAL FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS, Manu Torres uses the same language one might use to define beauty: an ineffable sensation that can’t be put into words. It’s a form of intuition, he says. “Sometimes I just look at a flower, get a feeling in my stomach, and I’m like, ‘Whoa.’” He frequents Portland, Oregon’s flower market, where he hangs around for longer than most, looking in every corner for something that speaks to him, much as one might navigate a museum. In 2017, when Torres started working full-time with flowers, the market didn’t have much of what he wanted—he prefers technicolor tropical flora, which he supplements with feathers, iridescent pom-poms, and DIY ombré paper fans—but he’s encouraged vendors to be more adventurous. “Now I’ll go in and they’ll say, ‘Hey, we found this weird thing and thought you’d like it. Do you want to take a picture of it?’ They’re always looking out for me.” Torres, 36, was born in Apatzingán, a city in the Mexican state of Michoacán, where he studied architecture before moving to Portland in 2009. His husband has a studio in
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the building that houses the contemporary art space Yale Union, whose high-concept exhibitions piqued Torres’s interest. A few years ago, he asked the organization how he could get involved, and Yale Union, knowing he’d been tinkering with flowers, suggested he make arrangements for its openings. Torres got to work. Early pieces involved store-bought plants, which he morphed into concoctions inspired by ikebana and Dutch still-lifes. Once, he outfitted a banquet table with birds of paradise, gladioli, roses, and cheese- and cold cut–filled fruit sculptures, creating a feast both edible and visual. These days, Torres pingpongs among commissions, including regular jobs for Nike and Portland’s Cloudforest chocolate shop. Seeing one of Torres’s maximalist, almost celebratory works in the wild is like spotting a celebrity on the sidewalk during fashion week: it looks dramatically out of place in the everyday spaces it inhabits, and that’s the point. “I don’t encounter a lot of color in my life,” he says. “These arrangements are a way to translate my ideas into something tangible, so people can see what I see.” —9,627 followers
