Oriental Orchid Red and Greens on Black Wallpaper

Trained as textile designers, Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons of the Glasgow-based design studio Timorous Beasties have become known for inventive wallpapers that riff on traditional damasks and toiles to fuse sensuous florals and bucolic scenes with provocative images and incisive social commentary. For their Oriental Orchid wallpaper, Timorous Beasties employed a four-screen hand-printing process to produce lush vertical columns of bold red orchids and dark green leaves overlaying subtle line drawings of Japanese Manga-inspired geisha characters. This wallpaper showcases the double nature of these innovative designers’ practice, in which a dedication to highly skilled technique and traditional forms of the decorative arts provides the perfect opportunity to stage a slightly bawdy critique of historical and cultural tropes concerning the exotic.