Tropical Rainforest Plants - 'Gondwana's Garden' Online Exhibition
Tropical rainforest plants of Australia, unique in the world, feature strongly in a recent group exhibition, Gondwana's Garden, held at Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns, North Queensland.
The small Port Douglas Artists group of professional artists invited a variety of artists from the region, whose work met quite strict criteria, to join them in developing works for the exhibition.
They aimed to establish a balance of two and three dimensional works which explored tropical gardens, especially those that had descended from ancient plants from Gondwanaland.
A Selection of 'Gondwana's Garden' Artworks
It was difficult to select just two or three images from each artist, but I have tried to represent each. If you are interested in purchasing any of these pieces or wish to contact each artist about another matter, please use the form at the bottom of this page.
Claire Souter
These delicate little, realistic, oil paintings by Claire Souter showcase beautiful brightly coloured fruits of the rainforest, which contrast with the greenery of their backgrounds.
Mollie Bosworth
"My mother was an avid researcher and collector of many plants, including ferns, and when I recently came across her pressed fern collection, it was an ideal starting point for the Gondwana's Garden exhibition.
Investigating the heritage of Gondwana, I chose to feature some of
the plant groups surviving for more than 200 million years ago, that have close
living relatives in North Queensland...continued right
Yoshiko Kirby
"Life is the dynamic union with what is now and what will come.
Life’s sacred spirit, the invisible heartbeat that permeates all that is, never seeks to restrain us.....continued right
Joy Shand-Culley
My intention, for this exhibition, was
to design and execute artworks which represented the concept of “Gondwana Land”,
from the super-continent, the tension as it breaks apart, then through
movement, toward the richness or nature as a fully-functioning microcosm.
Anna Curtis
"A long held obsession with native flora, I chose the ubiquitous eucalyptus as subject for the Gondwana exhibition.
I love everything about the
eucalyptus buds, flowers, pods and leaves, the intricacy of all its parts
and enjoy sharing with the viewer the beauty of this ancient plant.
Julie McEnerny
"Gondwana's Garden exhibition opened my mind's eye to the very beginnings
of our lush tropical gardens and their ancestry of ancient flora; of
times before dinosaurs roamed primordial forests and eons before flowers
and birdsong illuminated the planet.
Terry Johnson
"My work was inspired by the Gondwanan patterns of distribution of living organisms. Each work is a story of long ago merged into the world of today.
The song birds and parrots of our world today had their origins in Gondwana. This work celebrates these magnificent creatures."
Ellen Terrell
Ellen employs the ancient and highly skilled method of silver and copper lustre decoration on her jewel-like ceramic bowls and plates as they undergo their third firing in her gas kiln. The results are exquisite collectors' items.
Judith Bohm-Parr
"Life is a continuous journey with a few stops in-between;
for some metaphorically, for others literally. As an artist, I find that
journeying in both spheres presents inspiration for my art. I am at present at
“one of the stops, literally”, having relocated from 22 years in the tropics to
beautiful Childers & our new home which we named Xanadoo. Mother Nature has
been a defining rationale in my art for many years & I never tire of
portraying the endless repertoire she presents on every journey. The stunning
gardens of this new abode offer unlimited potential for portrayal in glass.
In his later years, Claude Monet found his muse in Givenchy.
As a mature artist, I humbly follow in his esteemed footsteps visually &
contextually, in my case using glass as the medium to portray changing light,
colour & form. Age softens vision, giving a different perspective to
everyday objects. My own use of the pate de verre technique acts as a filter
that blurs, softens and renders the seemingly everyday with mystical &
precious perspectives.
Lone White
I have played with clay and
glazes for over 40 years and during most of that time I have lived in Cairns. A
lot of my ceramic art works have been inspired by my surrounds -the reef and
rainforest.
Gail Shaw
"Cassowaries have no tongue. Many seeds of rainforest fruit will only germinate after passing through the cassowary’s digestive track. Paradise Kingfishers incubate their eggs in termite nests in a fascinating example of symbiosis.
Intriguing facts like these underpin the miracle of the gardens of Gondwanaland and it is the work of these extraordinary plant propagators - these “seed merchants” and “sticky beaks” of the forests that capture my imagination.
Working in the medium of transparent watercolour is always a challenge.
But it is the vivid, light-reflecting colours and the wilfulness of
water that has kept me inspired for the past twenty five years of my
watercolour journey.
Other exhibitors were Mary Ann Runciman, Heather Koowatha, Glen Mackie and Daniel O'Shane. In all, there were in excess of one hundred artworks, beautifully displayed.
Our thanks to all those hard working artists and support people, including the Douglas Shire Regional Arts Development Fund Committee, Tanks Arts Centre and Douglas Shire staff for helping to make this exhibition such a successful event.
Tanks Curator, Chris Stannard's recent letter to us read, in part, "Congratulations on having organised something of both great meaning and beauty.....you, as an organising team, brought a level of generosity and commitment that made this project a joy to have been a part of."
So that's a nice note on which to end!
PS: 2018 Calendar
Well, the project didn't quite finish with the end of the exhibition.
Twelve artists decided to produce a beautiful 2018 calendar featuring their work.
Intended as promotions and gifts for the artists to use it then turned into a highly successful fundraiser, meaning that we will be able to more easily fund future arts projects.
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