The Orchid screenprint is based on the painting from 1998 and is one of Tuymans' most emblematic works. The artist was inspired by the idea that certain flowers changed gender in reaction to climate change, which led Tuymans to paint an orchid, a flower with a strong feminine and erotic connotation alluding to fertility. Despite the typical representation, Tuyman's Orchid alludes to ambivalent associations. Green is the colour of renewal and nature, but also of rotting, thus the various shades of green in Orchid polarize the impression and create somewhat toxic environment. Orchid is Tuymans' take on the connotation of violence within the eroticism, it also serves as an ode to the beauty and decay.
“ The green orchid is a violent painting. The flower is fleshy and has a sort of poisonous atmosphere about it. And there's something sexual about the cut. „