Earth Canvas exhibition at Riddoch Art Gallery, Mt Gambier SA, with Carmel Wallace’s commissioned work Earth Tiles: Sampling Glenhuntly Farm in the foreground. Photo: Tim Rosenthal
Working at Liam and Sarah Brokensha’s property, Glenhuntly, for Earth Canvas was a perfect opportunity for me to extend parameters and experience regenerative farming in action. I decided to focus on soil as its health and vitality underpin productivity, the core of regenerative farming philosophy.My work for this exhibition has been created using samples of the major soil types at Glenhuntly, strengthened with both organic and inorganic materials found at the sites around the farm from which these samples were obtained.
Ref. Art Guide AUSTRALIA July/August 2021 p.210 [Listing by Riddoch Arts & Cultural Centre]
Ella Eade as Flora, Botanical Gardens Portland Victoria Australia. photograph by James Wallace 2014
FLORA is a short film by Carmel Wallace and Colleen Hughson with music composed by Michael Wallace Flora is played by Ella Eade. Portland Victoria Australia 2015
Flora celebrates the richness and fecundity of nature, personified by a young woman wearing a cloak* made of flowers. The singular beauty of indigenous species is displaced by seductive mass plantings of exotic flora as introduced by successive boat people to these shores. Whilst we may question this displacement, the film presents a post-colonial view of harmonious co-habitation: the bees happily feast on the nectar of both indigenous and introduced flowers, and we as audience also enjoy the extravagant beauty of both.
*Titled Flowers for Gardens, this cloak was originally created by Carmel Wallace in 2013 for One River, a Centenary of Canberra project, supported by the ACT Government & the Australian Government, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, The Sidney Myer Fund and the Australia Council for the Arts.
Please note: RSVP essential for admittance to this event. Numbers strictly limited.
RSVP essential to Renata Kopinski on 9653 7738 or renata.kopinski@sofitel.com by 17 February 2015
Bimblebox 153 Birds is part of a developing art project where writers, musicians and artists creatively engage with the avian residents of the endangered Bimblebox Nature Refuge to describe the bird species officially recorded there.
Bimblebox Nature Refuge is 8000 hectares of native bush-land in Queensland, Australia, legally recognised as a Nature Refuge and part of the National Reserve System of Protected Areas. It is currently under threat from massive coal-mining projects both directly over and under the refuge plus all around it, throughout the Galilee Basin.
Bimblebox Art Project is coordinated by artist Jill Sampson who developed the project as a way of exploring the material, visual, historical, scientific and physical existence of the Bimblebox Nature Refuge while questioning what the future holds and what human and societal value we place on it.
ARTIST STATEMENT: As human encroachments on wildlife refuges expand to provide resources for city dwellers & mining magnates, native wetland birds such as the Australian White Ibis move to cities to survive. Indeed this often-maligned bird, labeled a ‘tip turkey’ as it feeds on questionable waste, has become a city icon. Its apparently abundant numbers belie the health of wetlands on which it ultimately depends. Our Australian White Ibis is a close relative of the Sacred Ibis of Egypt, now in danger of extinction in spite of its once plentiful population. I’d like to elevate the Australian White Ibis from ‘tip turkey’ to sage, keeping in mind that the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, with the head of an Ibis, was considered a great counselor, mediator and patron of knowledge.
This is my work for 40° 42′ N /37° 48′ S a combined New York /Melbourne print exhibition at National Arts Club Gramercy Park, New York, NY from October 26 – November 8, 2014
Curators of Melbourne work: Dianna Gold & Dr Carmel Wallace.
Our joint New York /Melbourne exhibition is listed on the 2014 New York print Week program along with print exhibitions at major institutions such as the Guggenheim and MoMA.
and a poem about my work . . .
the end of May
gusts animate falling plane leaves a farewell curlicue dance through thinning air
collins street 5pm crisp leaves crackle and crunch beneath determined feet
melbourne in autumn quieter walks on leafy carpet softened by rain
and amongst fallen leaves other seasons’ ends rest and curl
