Les Fleurettes Africaines #5 abstracts botanical elements into a bouquet of dramatically shifting planes, sharp angles, and bright colors. The work takes its title and form from “Fleurette Africaine,” by Duke Ellington, embodying the movements, dissonances, and energy of the song. Colin Chase’s flowers also allude to an experience of diaspora. Uprooted and transplanted, his African flowers have become something else, flourishing in a new way under the distinctly African-American influence of jazz.