Marguerite Humeau Botrychium Lunaria (For Tonight’s Dreams) 2025

Informed by Marguerite Humeau’s longstanding fascination with ancient knowledges, Botrychium Lunaria (For Tonight’s Dreams) combines lithography with screenprinting and marks the artist’s first time working with either medium.

Botrychium lunaria is the Latin name for the moonwort – a small fern, with leaves resembling crescent moons, that is said to be collected by witches by moonlight. For centuries, this plant has been associated with magical, alchemical and healing properties. Imagined by Humeau as an ‘elixir for an unnamed emotion’, this print reflects Humeau's interest in the Doctrine of Signatures – a concept dating back to Hippocrates wherein the potential medicinal uses of plants is thought to be gleaned from their physical characteristics. Botrychium lunaria, which carries the signature of the moon, might therefore be thought to help balance the circadium rhythms of those too tired to sleep, enabling them, in the artist’s words, ‘to sleep better, and dream better’. Given this context, the creation of multiples through printmaking becomes a distribution method for Humeau’s elixir.

The realisation of Botrychium Lunaria (For Tonight’s Dreams) involved processes of layering that were more choreographed than controlled. A three-colour lithographic reproduction of a dark blue and grey drawing, made by Humeau in 2021, resembles both the moonwort and the night sky and acts as a ground. This drawing was Humeau’s first time using pastels, and saw Humeau searching for the elemental quality of pigments used in cave paintings and other ancient art. On top of this lithograph, the artist has added new layers that were drawn ‘blind’ on opaque sheets, through which the underlying composition could not be seen. For Humeau, this approach – which embraces chance through its inherent and welcome misregistration of layers – invokes the spirit photographs of the 19th century that depict the departed through ghostly superimposition.

The first of the work’s ‘blind’ layers, printed lithographically, is a cloudy magenta veil that colours and complicates the image below. To this, Humeau has then added a screenprinted layer of magenta linework that interrupts and energises the composition. Finally, a constellation of bright orange ember-like marks has been screenprinted in multiple passes, allowing for an accumulation of ink and heightened saturation.

To make this print, Humeau collaborated with the master printmakers at Coriander Studio and The Curwen Studio in London. Coriander Studio has been working with artists for more than 50 years, and The Curwen Studio has roots extending back to 1863, when it was founded by The Reverend John Curwen to produce hymn sheets for his congregation. Somerset paper was chosen for this project due to its exceptional printing characteristics and its low carbon footprint – the paper is locally produced and is made from a byproduct of the textile industry.

Botrychium Lunaria (For Tonight’s Dreams) combines ancient knowledges and a range of artistic approaches to render a layered visual form that, in its evocation of dreams, remains open to interpretation. The result is an exemplary print work – an elixir for unnameable emotions and a restful night’s sleep – that brings together chance and technique to wondrous effect.