Strength Totems - Canberra Wild Flowers 2023

Artist’s Statement

On my walks I smell the eucalyptus and the fresh Canberra air and delight in finding intensely coloured and exotically shaped luminous gems in the grass. Predominantly yellow and purple (complimentary opposites) they glow against the multiple hues of green. Being present in Ngunawal country, immersed in the bush gives me joy and comfort and I am so grateful for the continuing care the Ngunawal people have given this place. For me native flowers have become symbols of hope and renewal - abundant after the La- nina rain they are a reminder of how precious this place is, how precious our climate is and how we must take urgent action.

In the series Strength Totems – Wild flowers, pillars of stylised native local flowers are stacked to form totems of hope. Some of the flowers chosen have been used for thousands of years in Ngunawal culture as food and medicine – their value to human existence beyond aesthetic and symbolic - life sustaining and enriching. The totems float powerfully on patterned backgrounds that allude to the suburban environment – to breezeblocks and wallpapers - a nod to Canberra’s mid-century design legacy intermingled with the ‘bush capital’.

Being exhibited as part of:
35S: 149E  – Canberra Lived, Lime Flamingo Collective exhibition 2023
Sally Black, Jodie Cunningham, Agi De Simone, Roger Hancock, Julie Herring, Helen Hyslop and Gillian Jackson
Friday 31 March to Sunday 14 May 2023, Belconnen Art Centre Generator Gallery
Artists from the Lime Flamingo Collective (LFC) reflect on their experience of living in Canberra, generating work about their personal experiences of inhabiting space.