Botanically Porcelain​
A Touring Exhibition

otanically Porcelain - debut at the Australian Ceramic Triennale
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens Gallery, Alice Springs.
Monday 18th – Friday 22nd July 2022

Botanically Porcelain - The Second Installment
Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Culture Centre, Katherine
Friday 5th August - 17th September 2022

Following it's Debut at the Australian Ceramics Triennale the Botanically Porcelain installation will be joined by a second installation plus additional works for exhibition at GYRACC making a completely unique show for the Big Rivers Region leg of the tour.

Botanically Porcelain - The Third Installment
Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin
February - March 2023 

Two main installations become three for this, the homecoming leg of this touring exhibition. A new multi-media installation 'Seed' joins the toured works to create an immersive gallery experience embracing a narrative of re-growth, survival, hope and resilience. 
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In all three venues the reverence of the formal gallery setting intentionally separates and isolates these forms and images from the garden that inspired them, symbolising human disengagement with nature and a hope for a re-embracing of wonderment in the natural wealth that surrounds us.
Funding for Botanically Porcelain was supported with a grant from Australia Council for the Arts to develop the work. The touring of the work was made possible by the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.

Garden of Alchemy​
Tactile Arts Gallery Space, 19 Gonacher Street, Fannie Bay, Darwin. 
30th April -16th May 2021

The Garden of Alchemy is Dawn Beasley’s third solo exhibition at Tactile Arts and celebrates the culmination of a six-month Artist in Residency in the Tactile studios.
This body of work continues to explore Dawn’s preoccupation with the wonders of the botanical world and specifically the danger of viewing the world as a resource bank of assets rather than as the life-support system that is crucial to our own survival.

This exhibition honours the tenacity of life. It celebrates survival against the odds and the fact that this incredible planet will continue to be a place of awe-inspiring beauty, and that it could continue to sustain us… if only we recognised where true wealth lay.

Dawn Beasley would like to acknowledge the collaboration with Fiona Pow for her contribution to the main installation with her poem, written specifically for this work, entitled “Alchemy’.

Symbiosis​
Tactile Arts Gallery Space, 19 Gonacher Street, Fannie Bay, Darwin. 
27th August -15th September 2019


​This exhibition explored the human/ natural world relationship by playing with the similarities between plant and human forms. This collection of fine porcelain and stoneware sculptures were presented as a series of installations inspired by seedpods, flower parts, coral, lichen and fungi. The minimalist colour palette of white, creams and pinks unifies the work and hints at 'fleshy' delights.

"When I started this work my focus was the exploration of growth, life and regeneration within nature, but as I studied the intricate details within plant forms I began to notice just how similar plant and human reproductive organs actually are, and this provided me with the opportunity to play around with visual double meanings to create work that hinted at both. At the curating stages of this exhibition I decided to play on this more with the development of vinyl graphics to be displayed alongside the ceramic works. These 'plant labels' full of double entendres added to the visual play of human/nature: is it or isn't it? ... and hopefully made people smile too!"

The exhibition as a whole challenged the viewer to reconsider our view of nature as something separate from us; a commodity for us to enjoy and/or exploit. We are nature, and everything we do that harms nature harms us too!

​"Symbiosis (from  Greek συμβίωσις "living together", from σύν "together" and βίωσις "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic."

7 Skins (Until envious time has fled)
​Tactile Arts Gallery Space, 19 Conacher Street, Fannie Bay, Darwin. 
18th May -1st June 2018

Intricately depicted Top End natives; Gum nuts, Golden Penda Flowers, Banksia seedpods, Paperbark leaves and Lotus, appear and reappear in different forms across different surfaces.
​Rich with ‘momento mori’ symbolism and combining processes including batik, digital pattern design, metal leaf, paint and a range of ceramic decorative techniques, Beasley’s work reveals the dialogue between artist and subject matter in the analysis of surface and process, as she explores the narrative surrounding the fleeting nature of life.