June Bunch is a sensual sprite, a joyful spirit, a musician with a ukulele and an accomplished artist. She embodies all these personas with kindness as her superpower. This spring, her art will bloom in an upcoming show at The Morean Arts Center, where she also works as a graphic designer and special events coordinator.
Funded by the Gobioff Foundation, her solo exhibition State Flower Ladies will be on exhibit at downtown St. Pete’s Morean Arts Center from April 3rd through May 2nd, with an opening reception on April 11th. The show features giclee canvases printed and stretched on embroidery hoops, adorned with hand embellishments and arranged in an alphabetic grid. Guests can scan a QR code to get information on each bloom’s symbolism, mythology and cultural significance.
The exhibit will feature all 50 state flowers, along with stories behind each flower's cultural symbolism and lore. The works blend botanical illustrations with spirited figure drawings, "humanizing flora's choreography of growth,” Bunch offers. “My visual art is rooted in botany and ballet, focusing on the interplay of mother nature and womanhood in a bold, empowering way.”
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Bunch explains that the flower ladies are the soul of her artistic vision.
“I aim to encapsulate a journey in a visual moment, and a dancing illustration can do that. Dancers are so in tune with their body language that they can relay story arcs. Even when they are drawn midflight. You imagine their landing. I illuminate their dance with vibrant colors and clean lines,” she shares. “Let me use that to convey a story that takes longer. Let me use that to share the patient movements of nature, where the dancer's movement weaves into a represented plant to help create its story arc and its unique choreography. Movement, movement, movement, it's all about creating colorful vitality in a paused piece of space. I love a good story.”
The works start as expressive figure and botanical sketches, which are then translated digitally, refined with a pen tool, and finally enhanced through embroidery and embellishment on canvas.
Each piece is accompanied by a captivating and poetic description. As a San Diego girl, I was drawn to her musings on California’s vibrant state flower.
“This symbolizes peace, sleep and resilience,” she writes. “The California Poppy is a cup of golden petals which opens and closes mirroring the sunlight’s intensity, closing fully to go to sleep after sunset. Their feathery hues ripple through wild fields, creating a peaceful yellow glow that stops a viewer in their tracks. These blossoms were long used as medicine for indigenous communities and are no doubt an elixir for the eyes to come upon.”
This collection is the second in an ongoing exploration of classical figure drawings blended with lush botanicals that celebrate form and movement. In 2024, she created a birth month series and is working on a new set of astrological-themed illustrations.
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When describing our own fragrant state flower that perfumes the environment of Central and South Florida, she explains the powerful perceptions that have given this international bloom its historic appeal.
“Florida’s orange blossom symbolizes purity and prosperity. Orange blossoms are small, dainty things that blossom at the same time as they bear fruit. They were long enjoyed by ancient Chinese brides who wore orange blossoms to represent both their purity and their fertility. When Queen Victoria adorned her veil with the traditional flowers, she brought them into Western vogue, keeping them in popular demand for generations to come.”
Bunch grew up in St. Pete, where a love of art ran deep in her family.
“I've always seen myself as an artist. My dad raised my sister and I with a paper and pen to entertain ourselves. ‘Just draw what you see,’ he would say,” she recalls. “He was a painter and always encouraged creativity.”
A self-taught artist, Bunch borrowed art books from the library and studied the greats.
“I was inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe, Erté (Romain de Tirtoff), Alphonse Mucha, Henri Matisse and Antoni Gaudí,” she says. “I did take a summer art class or two on color theory and painting, but most of what I do comes from observing.”
She went to college in Asheville, North Carolina, and after a decade of living there, playing music and doing her art, she spent time in such states as North Carolina, Montana, Hawaii, Utah and Alaska before landing back 'in the Burg' for good.
While her appreciation for flowers began in Florida, the botanical bug bit hard during her travels.
“I worked at a plant nursery in Winter Haven in 2021 for a year before moving to Juneau, Alaska, where I took a naturalist job and fell in love with how the plants grew on the trails,” she recalls. “I trekked each day. I'd never been so close to nature. I commuted by bike and guided people on the trails every day for work. Rain or shine, I soaked it up and felt more at home in the seasons than ever before. It changed how I looked at mother nature and there were no words for it, so I tried to capture that essence by humanizing it into dancers.”
But it is not just her art that revolves around nature. That same creative inspiration extends into her music as well. Many of her songs are inspired by natural settings and her narrative style lends itself to distinctive storytelling.
Bunch laughs when asked which came first, art or music.
“Both. Forever. Consider them languages,” she offers. “I'm trilingual and need words, music and visual art to explain anything with any real clarity.”
Influenced by Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone and Adrianne Lenker, she began pursuing her musical aspirations as a street performer in Asheville around 2013, writing and performing her own songs. She quickly built a sidewalk following and eventually incorporated accompaniment, carving out her own unique chronicles through song.
“I carried a dictionary for songs, so I could flip through it for inspiration when words escaped me,” she says of her process. “Every good song lyric was in there, just not in order, but I always found a good one. During quarantine, I learned how to record them.”
If you want to experience the artist’s full bouquet of talents, mark your calendar for April 23rd from 5:30 to 7pm for her gallery talk about the exhibit and a mini concert at the Morean. You can also catch her at St. Pete’s Pistil House, Tampa’s Blooming Floral Café and Gulfport’s Wine House.
Visit junebunch.com to learn more.
