Tricia Paoluccio wants to capture the fleeting beauty of nature. The New York artist believes that botanical pressing—a method of preserving flowers by drying and flattening them—is a way to conserve elements of the great outdoors that may be gone tomorrow. “There’s something magical about weeds and wildflowers that grow despite being overlooked, and I’m drawn to their raw, honest beauty,” she tells Business of Home. “Flower pressing is my invitation to slow down and truly appreciate what’s in front of me.”
.jpg "This pressed-flower artist helped craft Taylor Swift’s iconic Grammy Awards dress")
Growing up on a farm in Modesto, California, Paoluccio spent most of her childhood outdoors. When she was a teenager, her brother built her a flower press; she began experimenting with the medium and was soon hooked. She spent the next few years foraging, pressing and preserving botanicals from the area, turning them into collages. In the mid-1990s, she moved to New York to pursue an acting career, and sold her handmade pressed-flower art in local boutiques. “What started as a joyful pastime led to years of focused practice, which shaped my craft and technique,” she says.
When the pandemic hit, she began sharing her artwork on social media and quickly earned a devoted following. She launched Modern Pressed Flower, a creative teaching platform where she shares methods and techniques, attracting more than 8,000 students worldwide and the attention of major tastemakers across the globe. “The team at Oscar de la Renta invited me to their New York office and asked me to bring as much art and as many pressed flowers as I could,” she says. “They told me they loved my hand and design sensibility, and that they wanted to build an entire collection using my art as the basis of the floral motifs.”
The result was de la Renta’s critically acclaimed Fall 2021 collection, pieces from which made appearances that year on Anna Wintour at the Met Gala and Taylor Swift at the Grammy Awards (where she won Album of the Year for Folklore). “It really proved that pressed-flower imagery could work in fashion and that florals don’t need to be painted or illustrated,” says Paoluccio. “Real, pressed flowers can be high fashion too.”
.jpg "This pressed-flower artist helped craft Taylor Swift’s iconic Grammy Awards dress")
Following the success of the collaboration, she launched her studio, Domain of the Flowerings, in 2022, offering commissioned pressed-floral compositions, original artwork, and eventually home goods. “I began photographing my pieces in a way that remained true to my original collages to create fine-art prints,” she says. “The breakthrough in technology allowed me to translate my pressed-flower art into other mediums, including wallcoverings and throws.”
All of Paoluccio’s designs begin with an assortment of foraged pressed flowers that she instinctively arranges into a collage on watercolor paper. Once she settles on a composition, she glues each piece down, and then has it professionally photographed to capture all the intricate details in high resolution. “That image becomes the basis for various patterns,” she says. “Some collages are reproduced exactly as is, while others are digitally refined to reflect emerging trends and colorways.”
Since launching her studio, she’s worked with an array of esteemed brands—including Loewe, Steinway & Sons, and Tiffany & Co.—and created a line of hand-knotted rugs in collaboration with Crosby Street Studios. She also works with interior designers on bespoke art and wallcoverings. “Designers know exactly how to bring a vision to life, and I love being a part of that process,” she says. “They can choose the scale of the flowers, tweak the colors, and adapt the layout to fit a space perfectly.”
Domain of the Flowerings recently unveiled a line of heirloom-quality porcelain tableware, and Paoluccio is currently hard at work on an upcoming collection of Italian artisan–made silk scarves she plans to debut at High Point Market this fall. “We’re also in the process of updating our wallcoverings to make them easier for designers to specify,” she says. “My original patterns have become a favorite for powder rooms and jewel-box spaces, but I’m excited to incorporate softer, more subdued patterns for larger rooms.”
