About the exhibition

Compound is a series that speaks to the quiet unravelling of habitats across lutruwita Tasmania, focusing on its common, threatened, and endangered flora and fauna.

Combining organic photographic textures within digitally constructed forms, these artworks reflect the compounding pressures shaping our environment: climate change, land clearing, and ongoing misuse. Blending inlaid images from local habitats with the smooth, formal visual language of illustration – each work is a layering of mediums and meaning.

A nod to the rich history of scientific and botanical drawing, each artwork pairs a native creature with a plant species or aspect from their habitat, revealing fragile relationships and shared vulnerability. The works invite slow looking, rewarding attention to texture, pattern, detail and the delicate balance between our unique endemic species and wild places.

The idea for this series started in 2018, with an artwork titled Dark Omen for the dear kunanyi group exhibition – a protest exhibition against the cable car. Tinderbox, a second in the series, was in response to changing water temperatures and nutrient levels created 2021. The expanding of these themes and visual techniques has given me the opportunity to share with you my love for this place, for these creatures, for these plants and these diverse habitats. A chance to slow down, notice and reflect.

The descriptions of each artwork share fascinating facts about our unique creatures and flora. Many note the worrying trends in our natural environment, BUT there are many people out there taking steps to support and make positive changes too – please take heart! There are breeding programs, reintroduction programs, education and partnerships. There are feet on the ground. If there has been a particular artwork that has spoken to you, I encourage you to look at how you can make a change to support these creatures and their habitats. You could add a bird feeder or bird bath, replace rat bait with traps, get rid of lawn and add beneficial local plants for birds and insects, slow down while driving dusk until dawn, donate to research or conservation efforts, join your local Bushcare group or make a nesting box and hang it in your garden. Every step helps!