Ana Belén Rodríguez López

Ana Belén Rodríguez works at the intersection of botanical art, traditional craft and the passage of time.

Her journey began in a world seemingly far removed from the one she inhabits today: finance. It was a world concerned with things that often felt increasingly disconnected from the physical world.

Eventually, she chose to return to something tangible.To the things that grow, fall, decay and disappear.

Ana Belén has always been drawn to what others overlook, a broken branch, a fallen leaf, a flower past its prime. Where others might see waste or imperfection, she sees character, movement and beauty. Her practice is an act of paying attention.

After moving to New York in 2014, she found herself close to a growing movement of florists questioning the conventions of an industry increasingly dependent on imported flowers and synthetic materials. She concerned by the enormous waste generated by conventional floral practice, from imported flowers to materials such as floral foam, Ana began developing a slower, more attentive approach.

Today, she works primarily with locally grown flowers, foraged materials and discarded natural elements, often allowing the material itself to determine the form. She incorporates techniques learned from traditional craft communities around the world, transforming inherited knowledge into new ways of working with botanical matter. Her work is sculptural rather than simply floral.

Ana divides her time between teaching at Madrid Flower School and her Madrid studio, where she creates sculptural installations for private clients and public spaces. She also serves on the board of Xtant, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and reimagining heritage craft knowledge.

Travel is an essential part of her practice. She seeks out traditional craft communities not simply to observe their techniques, but to learn from the ways knowledge is carried through hands, materials and generations. She brings these encounters back into her own practice, allowing them to evolve into something new.

At the heart of Ana's work is a quiet invitation to look again, to notice what we normally pass by, to find beauty in impermanence.

See Ana's work here.