Botanical Portraits

Botanical Portraits is a series of works on paper inspired by collections of insects and botanical specimens. Detailed drawings are made using technical drafting pens with watercolour and collage on heavy sheets of watercolour paper.  Diagrams and studies of locally collected botanical specimens are drawn and positioned to create unusual portraits.  The act of collecting specimens references classification and early colonial exploration in Australia.  Systems of classification were often used in an attempt to ‘know' the unknown, and at times unpredictable, even invented results ensued.  These works take this concept and expand on it by using groupings of actual forms to create entirely new, invented forms.Leaves become eyes and mouths, insects are re-imagined as noses and a plethora of imagery is used to suggest hair, framing the face.  Fine detail in the pen work references scientific illustration and contrasts stains of watercolour.  Botanical and insect specimens are drawn from life and from diagrams in botany books.  These invented forms are reminiscent of a past era of exploration, and are inspired by the whimsy and fantastical elements in the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Hieronymus Bosch.