Project Flamboyant! Seeing the Poinciana Through New Eyes

19/08/2026

EACH YEAR, AS SPRING TIPS INTO SUMMER, CAYMAN TURNS THE SATURATION ALL THE WAY UP. THE POINCIANAS TAKE FULL CREDIT.❤️‍🔥

The familiar trunks arch over the main roads, their canopies bursting scarlet and orange-red, petals scattered like nature got carried away with the confetti. Especially along the Savannah–Spotts–Newlands stretch. You know the one.

The Royal Poinciana, Delonix regia, is also known across the Caribbean and other parts of the tropics as the Flamboyant Tree — a name that feels almost too perfect once it is in full bloom.

For all its drama, the poinciana is something we can grow strangely blind to. It’s what happens when you live somewhere beautiful: eventually, beauty becomes wallpaper. Project Flamboyant set out to interrupt that familiarity, inviting the public to capture the Royal Poinciana through their own lens.

For a tree that looks so completely at home in Cayman, it is not Caribbean by origin at all.

The Royal Poinciana, Delonix regia (or the Flamboyant Tree, as it’s often known), is native to Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. From there, it became one of the great botanical travellers of the tropical world, planted far beyond its original range because humans took one look at it in bloom and, quite reasonably, decided they wanted one too. Today it grows across the Caribbean, Central America, parts of Asia, Africa, Australia and the warmer reaches of the United States.

Somewhere along that journey, the tree became thoroughly Caribbean.

Cayman’s affection for the tree is nothing new. The National Gallery holds Edrid Banks Jr.’s Flower Tree (1971) and Carol Owen’s Poincianas at Government House (1995), two artists decades apart, each drawn to the same familiar bloom.

Visit the National Gallery:
**View Poincianas at Government House — Carol Owen
View Flower Tree — Edrid Banks Jr.**

A place isn’t made only from what originated there. It’s shaped by what takes root and what people come to recognise as their own. That makes the Poinciana a fitting subject for a Cayman Style project: planted, painted, photographed, and simply appreciated, becoming part of the visual language of the Cayman Islands along the way.

A Community in Focus

For one submission, Poinciana Reverie by Daniel Langer, the process went much further. Inspired by photographer Pep Ventosa’s In the Round series, Langer walked around a tree taking roughly 40–50 photographs from different positions, then layered and blended them into a single impressionistic image.

Some entries were deeply personal. Amie Shyl photographed a Royal Poinciana during what she called one of the hardest seasons of her life. “When its season comes, it does not remain broken,” she wrote. “It blooms.” Another described the tree at Faith Hospital in Cayman Brac as a reminder that “life is both fragile and resilient.” For many others, it was simply about taking part: getting outdoors, and noticing the beauty of our islands on purpose, maybe for the first time in a while.

A Melting Pot of Creative Works

The submissions showed how differently people can interpret a single subject. Some approached it with a photographer’s eye; others simply noticed a poinciana on a familiar road and reached for their phone.

“People don’t all arrive with the same experience, resources, or creative background,” said Shemila Eden, Creative Developer. “But creative self-expression is a gift, and everyone deserves room to explore it. The goal is to build modern tools and spaces that bring creativity together, and make it fun.”

Two winners will emerge from the challenge, one chosen by the community’s vote and one selected by the Cayman Style panel for creativity, composition, and storytelling. Prizes include a featured spotlight, a professionally framed print of their winning shot, and their choice of a free two-hour session at ZEAL Creative Studio or cash prize.

"I thoroughly enjoy taking a single theme and seeing how many ways it can be interpreted. This photo challenge was one prompt, a two-week window, and an open invitation. Often the community just needs a nudge to do something they already love, and a space to share it in style."

— Bruce Gordon, Creative Director

Missed the submission deadline? Not to worry, you can still add your perspective to the collection here.

Alongside the open photography call, select works will be spotlighted in an upcoming Digital Exhibit featuring local creatives from various disciplines.

CREATIVE Experiment - Coming Soon

digital Exhibit

Soon come! The next part of Project Flamboyant.

For the digital exhibit, we invited a group of local creatives to take the Poinciana somewhere new. Working across different disciplines, each person had only two weeks to answer the same prompt, and to document how they got there.

Stay tuned.