“I like a bigger garden” was the insightful and fascinating response by New York gallerist Betty Parsons to the famous male artists in her gallery demanding that she concentrate primarily on representing them and avoid promoting lesser-known artists. I like a bigger garden was also the title of an exhibition curated by Fanni Fetzer at the Kunstmuseum Luzern in 2021, in which the work of Lucerne artist Josephine Troller (1908–2004) confronted two younger positions, the Swiss artist Charlotte Herzig (b. 1983) and the Belgian artist Ben Sledsens (b. 1991). Taking its title quite literally, the exhibition presented a selection of paintings populated by flowers, trees, and blossoms, but also looked at the garden as a figurative notion to be explored.

This book presents Herzig’s work as featured in I like a bigger garden, her first institutional exhibition. “What are we looking at when we look at Charlotte Herzig’s wall paintings of flowers?” asks Chus Martínez in the essay she contributes. Playing with surface, space, and abstract organic forms, Herzig treats the world of flowers as a universe to reference—a means of understanding how nonhuman systems connect and how we perceive them.