Exhibitions

Gift of the Grape

13-15 November 2015 – Solo Exhibition

Balmain Watch House, Darling Street, Balmain NSW

This exhibition was officially opened on Saturday 14 November 2015, by Angus Fisher my etching teacher from Sydney’s National Art School.

The work was all based on my personal experiences with the vines, through assisting in local vineyards. I was fascinated by all stages of the grapes’ yearly cycle. 

In this exhibition I ventured away from strictly botanical studies and experimented with some abstraction. Sometimes I need to break away from the discipline of scientific drawing for a while. The grapes and vines suggested all sorts of interesting shapes to me. For colours – black, white and gold are some of my favourites.

Glimpses in a Rainforest

21 April – 19 May 2018

Robertson Community Technology Centre, Robertson NSW

I started making images of Robertson Rainforest flora in earnest in 2014, and in that year exhibited 14 of my works with other artists at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. This later exhibition in 2018 was a solo show. 

At the exhibition opening Susannah Blaxill, one of Australia’s leading botanical artists, very kindly spoke about my work, which included drawings, etchings, collagraphs, and oil paintings.

The oil paintings were all based on actual sites in the Robertson Nature Reserve, where I did bush regeneration each month. A visitor in there could see sunlight falling through the forest, huge twisting vines and scattered mossy rocks along the ground. It is a magical place. 

My aim with this exhibition was to help to raise awareness about the local critically endangered rainforest and its importance. I was therefore very excited when, in September 2019 the National Threatened Species Scientific Committee on behalf of the Australian Government, listed the Robertson Rainforest as the 83^rd ecological community to be of national environmental significance under national environment law. 

Following this, in 2019, I was invited to coordinate a community project for the Robertson Environment Protection Society (REPS) to prepare a new field guide about the Robertson Rainforest and create all the botanical illustrations for the book.

Guide to the Robertson Rainforest: Trees, Shrubs, Vines and Ferns of the Yarrawa Brush

14 – 28 May 2021 – Solo Exhibition

Robertson Community Technology Centre, Robertson NSW

Exhibition of selected drawings, and my presentation given as part of the book launch on 15 May.

This community project, initiated in 2019 by REPS in the NSW Southern Highlands, involved producing a new guidebook for the wider community about the trees, shrubs, vines and ferns which comprise the critically endangered Robertson Rainforest, also known as Yarrawa Brush. My task was to coordinate the project as well as creating botanically accurate drawings of 81 plant species. The book was completed, in spite of delays caused by COVID, and launched in May 2021. As part of the book launch, REPS asked me to exhibit a selection of the full-page drawings from the book. I chose twenty of these to be displayed – three are shown here.