From flower spheres the size of small buildings and royal weddings to one bloom thoughtfully placed, the work of Belgium’s floral design iconoclast Daniel Ost runs the gamut.
With a talent that soars to impossible heights and a reputation for unbelievably beautiful compositions and technically astonishing installations, Daniel Ost circles the globe with glorious feats of floral artistry.
As a young florist in the 1980s, he snatched up—in a decade—every prestigious award a European florist could ever dream of, collecting first prizes in Belgium, Germany, and Japan and finally the coveted world championship in Detroit in 1985.
A nature lover from a very young age, Daniel arrived on the design scene with an original approach to floristry, working with both flowers and natural materials in an entirely new way. His sensitivity and respect for organics and botanicals was inventive early on in his career; he adored woodsy and wild pieces, thorns, stringy and lumpy roots, grasses, deformed and dried seeds, dark things, lost twigs, cones, and weeds—all that was overlooked on the forest floor and in the fields.
He then paired nature’s oddities with divine white lotus or simple red poppies, bound green leaves or bunches of pine needles, trailing berries or bean pods. From there, Daniel took a turn stylistically and began to mass peonies, ranunculi, or hydrangeas as big as dinner plates in phenomenal proportions. It would be difficult to find a flower or plant he hasn’t held in his hands or spied its obvious or hidden character.
In his first book, Leafing through Flowers, he created a glamorous Malmaison rose from hundreds of petals and snuggled it in a nest of convolvulus vines with a cloud of dandelion heads. He took lengths of Salix and sculpted them in organic fish pot forms and, in another design, placed hellebores gently amongst dried leaves and snowflakes.
These compositions were amazing for the 1980s and brought a new consciousness and meaning to what beauty could also be. Daniel combined materials that had never before been seen as complimentary, yet he achieved a perfect sense of harmony and ease of juxtaposition. At the time, it was said that his work “without” flowers was never going to cut it, a comment that has since been turned on its head a million times over. More than merely cutting it, Daniel single-handedly created a new impulse in floristry.
More books followed that first revelation, and a discerning public, who happened upon them, began to know and admire his artistic spirit, his refined feelings for nature’s phases whether fresh or fading, his craftsmanship, his daring-do. He published his mesmerizing Leafing through Flowers IIand Leafing through Flowers III — big, luxurious, spellbinding volumes that, by a twirl of destiny, began to influence his life, too. One by one, he began receiving commissions for private events and parties—exceptional projects in exotic places.
Today with profound discretion and respect for his clients’ privacy, he shares some of these occasions in Invitations II (Lannoo, 2010), a follow up to the runaway concept of its precursor,Invitations. Here, as then, we are privileged to glimpse a selection of some of his most enchanting and breathtaking creations.
In its pages, we find a moonlit wedding scene held outdoors at the foot of rose-colored, sandstone cliffs in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, showing us how celebrations held al fresco can happen anywhere with imagination and, of course, organization. There are monumental concert halls, great palazzos, famous and exclusive homes and hotels, roof gardens in the world’s biggest cities, cathedrals and castles, a myriad of celebrations, even surprising bridal bouquets from the catwalks of Japan. Everything we see inInvitations II, we realize, began in the imagination of and with the flourish of Daniel Ost’s paintbrush. (All his preliminary drawings are given to his clients as water-colored paintings in portfolios—a personal and moving touch.)
A trail of commissions come to Daniel daily at work in his original Sint-Niklaas flower shop, where he still makes bouquets, despite his worldwide reputation for huge productions. He continues to accept invitations to Japan, China, Dubai, Thailand and Taiwan, while adding two Biennales to his resume, in Korea and Venice, respectively. One has to be lucky to catch him here or perhaps in his preciously restored Art Nouveau flower shop at 13 Rue Royal in Brussels, surely a labor of love for him and one of the most unique flower shops ever imagined.
As a preferred florist of the royalty in Belgium, he creates unforgettable atmospheres for the royal occasions, for weddings of princes and princesses and royal birthday parties. For Prince Laurent’s marriage, thousands of white azaleas in double cascades covered the pillars of the cathedral in a spectacle still talked about.
In 1985 he was invited to work in Japan for the first time and this morphed into a regular schedule of teaching and exhibiting and developed his deep admiration of Japanese culture.
“From my Japanese master, I learnt that sometimes one, single flower can say more than ten thousand flowers. You only have to know when you have to use one or when you have to use ten thousand,” Daniel says.
In the present, he’s created an enviable second life, a lifestyle that sees him traveling (at last count he’s passed through the airport arrival lounge in Tokyo 70 times), working, and living in both Belgium and Japan with interludes elsewhere. With his art, Daniel has spanned the world for more than 40 years, bringing remarkable innovations in floral design and decoration to every project. He’s been described metaphorically as “the bridge” since his feet are firmly set in both Flanders and the Oriental sensitivity found in Japan. Certainly, he is an ambassador and a creative icon who has brought both the cultural and artistic souls of the West and East closer together.
On the topic of bridges, the architect Santiago Calatrava was quoted in Bernhard Graf’s Bridges That Changed the World as saying: “Bridge building is more efficient than any other form of architecture as it is accessible to everyone. Bridges are accessible to people who are not interested in art. One single gesture transforms nature and gives it order.”
This is pure Daniel Ost, as well. His work transforms nature, just as he has allowed it to transform himself and, by assimilation, us as onlookers, too.
In his own words, this innovative designer sees himself as a florist first and foremost. To those who know him or have only but observed him, he’s the sum of many parts: an idealist, a conductor, a stage manager, an actor, and a visionary. While Daniel is perpetually pushing boundaries, his creative spirit rarely sleeps. The day we met he had just signed papers as the first formal step toward opening his own school for floral designers in a 16th century house in his hometown. The magic continues.
See more at www.danielost.be. His books can be found in the USA at www.editofloris.com or contact sophie@editoconsult.com for more information.
