Sue Abonyi

Before becoming a freelance professional botanical illustrator I was working in the Plant Protection Services of Zala County, SW Hungary. My former workplace for years is a governmental service, like the USDA in the US is.

The core of my work is related to agriculturally important plants, spices, medicinal plants, ruderal and other weeds of agricultural importance, common and protected plants of the wild flora. I am using color pencil, india ink, color pastel, watercolor and tempera.

So far my 166 paintings and 118 drawings were used in academic works in Hungary, Gree...

Before becoming a freelance professional botanical illustrator I was working in the Plant Protection Services of Zala County, SW Hungary. My former workplace for years is a governmental service, like the USDA in the US is.

The core of my work is related to agriculturally important plants, spices, medicinal plants, ruderal and other weeds of agricultural importance, common and protected plants of the wild flora. I am using color pencil, india ink, color pastel, watercolor and tempera.

So far my 166 paintings and 118 drawings were used in academic works in Hungary, Greece, South Korea and in the US as well. I had 24 exclusive exhibitions, including exhibitions held at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and other academic institutions.

In addition to my exclusive exhibitions my works were exhibited at a number of nature-related exhibitions, together with works of professional nature photographers. My next major exhibition will take place in June, in the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture and Hunting, where my spices and medicinal plants works were invited for a special, temporary program.

On an inquiry from the Smithsonian Institution last November I painted the scientifically correct painting showing Angraecum sesquipedale and the famous moth Xantophan morganii predicta shown in my art.com album too. In contrast with numerous fantasy illustrations this work is based on careful measurements made on photos of the orchid photos of hard-to-find museum specimens of the moth and rendered true to scale. The painting will appear in a textbook on art and science for the students of the Miongji University, South Korea.

Currently I am working on images of 120 spices and medicinal plants for a country-wide coverage TV channel, which already broadcasted a TV series on me.