The Last Post
‘The Last Post’ is made of a paper daisies – the national flower of Denmark.
The artwork commemorates the end of letter deliveries by the Danish national postal service. PostNord stopped delivering letters at the end of 2025 and removed all the post boxes. I invited people to write to me and used copies of the letters to make the daisies, with Danish stamps forming the discs at the centre of the flowers.
‘The Last Post’ was an installation of a paper daisies – the national flower of Denmark. A thousand paper daisies cascaded down the Georgian stairwell at Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton, England.
The artwork commemorates the end of letter deliveries by the Danish national postal service. PostNordstopped delivering letters at the end of 2025 and removed all the post boxes. I invited people to write to me and used copies of the letters to make the daisies, with Danish stamps forming the discs at the centre of the flowers.
The way we communicate has changed so much over the years. We just don’t express ourselves in writing in the same way that people used to in times gone by. I love receiving a handwritten letter or card, but it doesn’t happen nearly so often as it used to.
PostNord ending their delivery of letters and removing the post boxes felt like such a significant moment that I wanted to mark it.
The letters I received share people’s thoughts on PostNord’s decision to end letter deliveries, as well as memories of meaningful letters from the past. One writer recalled the family gathering round the kitchen table with the smell of coffee, listening to her mother reading letters from an aunt in Norway. Another reflected on how long it takes to write a letter by hand – even having to swap pens when the first one ran out of ink.
I used copies of the letters, their envelopes and contents including maps, cards, pictures and original art.. I chose the daisy because it is the national flower of Denmark as well as a symbol of new beginnings and hope – offering an optimistic note, despite the sad end of the handwritten letter.
I collaborated with composer Laura Reid who composed an accompanying soundscape. The music used a French horn, taking inspiration from the post horn which appeared on Denmark’s post boxes. When the postal service began, the post horn would be sounded to announce the arrival of the letters. Voices reading the letters’ text are layered over the music.
The Coolest Colour
A paper cello, a ‘Sky Window’ and paper Viking Boats were all part of an exhibition inspired by the colour blue.
I collaborated with artist Jane Perkins on the exhibition at Powderham Castle – which has its own special shade known as Powderham Blue.
I created a ‘Sky Window’ covered in images of the sky selected from 1,825 photos taken daily since the beginning of the first lockdown.
When lockdown first happened, there were blue skies and sunshine for a few weeks. We had to stay at home with restricted access to the outside world. I began to look around me and appreciate the space that I had. I looked straight up at the sky and took a photo – a perfect rectangle of blue.
I posted the picture on social media, and had lots of responses from friends. I carried on taking pictures of the sky from the same spot in my garden each day. People commented on the shades of blue, the shapes of the clouds, and messaged me if the day’s photo hadn’t appeared. I’ve been taking daily photos of the sky ever since.
Inspired by the musical instruments depicted in the decorative plasterwork on the Powderham Blue staircase, I created a paper cello. The fingerboard and tailpiece are made from old cello music, and the strings are different shades of blue.
Nautical charts with lots of blue sea were used to make paper Viking boats inspired by small boats in the National Museum of Denmark.
Remembrance
For this installation, I used hundreds of paper flowers made using copies of love letters written during World War II.
Eric was an aircraft engineer who wrote to Josie two or three times a week for over five years. At first she was his girlfriend, then his fiancée, and then they married. The letters only stopped when they moved in together and no longer needed to write. Their stories are important – stories of everyday life, stories of emotions during times of separation, stories of ordinary people connecting.
I chose poppies – the flower of remembrance – for this installation.
Viking Boats
Inspired by objects in the National Museum of Denmark, I made paper boats using Scandinavian nautical charts and gold paper.
Viking boats are an important part of Scandinavian history and culture.
Love Letter envelopes
I’m interested in handwritten letters and the information shared in them – important information, declarations of love, and more ordinary comments about everyday life.
I’ve made framed collections of tiny envelopes which show snippets of the original text, the folds of the paper, the marks that have been made over time; some are tear-stained. All show marks of humanity. I like to see my art as giving the letters a new life.
The envelopes and their frames are reminiscent of display cases with collections of insects, which always fascinated me as a child visiting Manchester Museum.
Japanese Anemones
These Japanese Anemones are made from the pages of an old Japanese book that was given to me. Some of the pages have holes in them where they’ve been eaten by bookworms.
Gillian Taylor 