In this episode of Beyond The Mirror, Aleph Beauty founder Emma Peters sits down with New Zealand artist and photographer Emma Bass for a conversation about creativity, colour, flowers and the deeper role beauty plays in our lives.

Known for her striking floral artworks, Emma Bass has built a creative practice centred around flowers as objects of exquisite beauty, joy and meaning. For Emma, flowers are more than something beautiful to look at. They symbolise fertility, the life cycle, transformation and the quiet resilience found in nature.

Her connection to beauty began long before her floral work. Before becoming a photographer, Emma trained and worked as a nurse in New Zealand and the UK. Spending time in clinical environments gave her a deep awareness of how surroundings can affect our mental state. She noticed the lack of beauty, colour and visual comfort in hospital spaces, and this became part of what now informs her work.

During the conversation, Emma reflects on the human need for beauty and how we are naturally drawn to it. She speaks about the way a flower can lift a mood, ground us, and offer a moment of calm in a complex world. This idea runs through her practice, where she creates floral compositions that explore not just perfection, but the beauty found in change, age and imperfection.

Emma also shares her experience with synesthesia, a way of perceiving the world where letters, words and numbers appear as colours. This intuitive relationship with colour influences the way she builds her floral portraits, often beginning with a vase, a flower, or a feeling, then allowing the composition to unfold naturally.

A key theme of the episode is the beauty of imperfection. Emma talks about being drawn to flowers as they begin to turn, when they become more interesting and expressive. This connects to the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, where broken objects are repaired with gold, becoming more precious because of their history.

The conversation also touches on creativity as care. Emma shares her love of knitting “happy socks” for friends and family, including loved ones going through difficult times, and her ongoing support of Breast Cancer Cure. Her limited-edition scarf, created in partnership with Breast Cancer Cure and Good & Co, is designed from one of her floral artworks, with all proceeds going towards the cause.

At its heart, this episode is a reminder that beauty is not superficial. It can comfort, connect, uplift and help us see the world, and ourselves, with more softness and meaning.

Shop Emma Bass x BCC Scarf