Craft ACT, Canberra 31 January - 16 March 2019
This exhibition is an artistic response to my 2016 arts residency at the National Museum of Australia, with further research conducted in Ireland in 2018, on an album of pressed seaweeds in the NMA collection. My detective work found provenance for that album and led me on a journey to research the role of women botanical collectors in the 19th century. This exhibition explores seaweed collection through embroidery, glass, cyanotypes, watercolours, installation and pressed specimens.
‘Hortus conclusus’, 2019 Cuttlebones, handcarvingDimensions: 200cm diameter Photo:Five Square
‘Flowers of the Sea’Glass, marine macroalgae, hand engravingDimensions: each panel 25 x 75cmPhoto: Dorian PhotogaphicsCollection of the National Museum of Australia.jpg)
‘From land and Sea’ (detail), 2019Shown (L): Rhodospermae (R): ChlorospermaeVintage kid leather gloves, silk embroideryPhoto: Dorian Photographics.jpeg)
‘Sampler’, 2019 Vintage sieve, hand dyed linen and cotton embroideryPhoto: Five Square.jpg)
‘Submerged’ (detail), 201942 Vintage lace handkerchiefs, cyanotypes of marine macroalgaeInstallation : 150cm x 170cm Photo: Dorian Photographics.jpg)
‘Collecting Ladies II’, 2018Watercolour, pressed seaweed, prickingPhoto: Dorian Photogaphics.jpeg)
'The Hidden Sex' 2019 Gallery view Photography: 5ft Photography.jpeg)
‘Collecting Ladies II’, 2018Watercolour, pressed seaweed, prickingPhoto: Dorian Photogaphics