Collections – Australian Floral Emblems

Whilst ‘on a roll’ I decided to update the info on this blog about another of my ‘Collections’ – Australian Floral Emblems.

In 2001 I was invited by Sutherland Shire Council Cultural Planning and Events Unit, for their Heritage Festival to produce a collection for exhibition based around the Centenary of Federation. This was the first invitation I received from this unit and came about after my participating as part of Group Exhibition in the Palm House Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney to celebrate the New South Wales State floral emblem – the Waratah – Telopia speciossima, in the ‘STATE OF THE WARATAH’ EXHIBITION – OLYMPICS ARTS FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 2000 – ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, SYDNEY.

Having grown up in the Sutherland Shire it was wonderful to focus on the wildflowers – flora – of this area (and Sydney sandstone) and was a nostalgic link back to my childhood.

The result of this invitation was the exhibition called ‘Florafed’.

The focus of new work for this exhibition was the completion of the series of linocut prints based around the Australian Floral Emblems.

I then expanded the idea of using the central floral emblem surrounded by wildflowers  found that State/Territory – recognising ‘state boundaries’ don’t exist for wildflowers! This took an enormous amount of research and help from experts who I am grateful gave me the time. The result was a set of eight larger pieces known as:

‘Australia: A Nation of Wildflowers’

Below is a closeup of the Nation of Wildflowers – Nation of Wildflowers.

To ’round off’ the collection I produced a celebratory piece – ‘Emblems’.

To add to the ‘Heritage Festival’ element of the exhibition I was commissioned to produce 2 works based on the Sutherland Shire – these now form part of a collection for the Sutherland Shire sister city of Chuo, Tokyo.

They are “Wildflowers – Sutherland Shire”  based around the ‘Gymea Lily’ – Hazelhurst Regional Gallery is in Gymea in the Sutherland Shire and “Kurnell – Endangered Ecology” highlighting the endangered ecological community of flora found at Kurnell (part of he Sutherland Shire and ‘Birthplace of the Nation’) and the idea of an image of a book closing and losing these important flora communities.

To see the collection in full please visit my website – Lynette Weir.