Nessie Ramm

Toadflax, woundwort, goat’s-beard, viper’s bugloss: these centuries-old plant names evoke the richness of this once wild land. But if you’re looking for our native wildflowers these days you might struggle to find them in the countryside at all – where intensive farming methods leave little room. Instead turn your attention to the verges alongside our road network and you might have better luck. There you will find these plants from a lost bucolic era, now thriving undisturbed on roundabouts, along slip-roads, around car parks and in litter strewn lay-bys.

Nessie Ramm is on a mission to paint the plant communities of the road verges of Britain in exquisite detail on to metal road signs. The plants, elevated from their humble surroundings, entwine and grow over the road signs, reclaiming and rewilding familiar traffic instructions in the process.

Nessie’s work is both a joyful celebration of these overlooked wild spaces and a call for us to re-evaluate our relationship with the natural world.