These botanical, or eco, prints are an ongoing series. Leaves, flowers and plant matter are pressed against mordanted paper, then bundled and bound. In the steaming that follows, the plants release their own pigments and iron-and-tannin marks directly onto the sheet. De Villiers works on Fabriano, Waterford and Hahnemühle watercolour papers, treated with alum, iron or soya-milk mordants; the impressions are gathered into artist’s books and larger sheets.

What draws her is the unpredictability, the risk and the alchemy: the maker sets up the conditions but cannot fully control the result — each print is a collaboration with the plant and the process, worked from olive, eucalyptus, geranium, camellia, mimosa, fern, grape leaf, onion skin and walnut.

The prints feed her fibre and sculptural work — eco-dyed, botanically printed cloths recur in pieces such as Mycoremediation and Litany, where an olive-branch print on a pre-loved cotton runner, or eco-dyed biodegradable fibres, become part of a larger installation.