Project Description
Picture a walkway/path through a tropical field of organic growth, each piece similar but on closer inspection unique. Delicate but enduring; the very properties that make porcelain so valued, displayed en-masse so that the work speaks both of diversity and commonality within the human endeavour to save the planet that sustains us. A floor-based porcelain installation, an expanse of budding delicately rendered botanic forms, each exquisite on its own, collectively breath-taking and sublime.
Botanically Porcelain will be an 18-month project led by Darwin artist Dawn Beasley in partnership with the George Brown Botanic Gardens. Starting in 2021 and culminating in a three-venue exhibition tour in 2022.
The project will begin with Artist in the Gardens, with Dawn working direct from nature in the botanic gardens to produce mixed-media studies, recording shapes, forms and textures to inform later design work. Public interaction will be encouraged, and free Sunday in the Gardens drop-in workshops will foster public artistic engagement with nature.
As the project moves into the designing and ceramic production stages the work will move from the Gardens to Dawn's studio at Tactile Arts. The studio will be open to the public to continue to foster and build a public following as the work moves from Paper to Porcelain.
July will see the artist returning to the Gardens to run a thematically linked community project to produce botanically textured tiles for a community mosaic installation before returning to the studio for the intensive mass production stages of the project.
The community engagement activities throughout the project intentionally takes art to the community and brings the community into art spaces emulating the osmosis of plant influence into porcelain, and the installation of porcelain elements into a ‘garden’. This transitional theme is mirrored again in the exhibiting decisions for multiple venues creating a pilgrimage with conceptual links between the journey of creation and the hallowed ground of the formal gallery setting. Each transitional path adds weight to the intrinsic existential value of environmental care.
Botanically Porcelain: a touring exhibition:
The formal gallery setting for all three shows creates a reverence to the immersive experience and conceptually isolates the work from the environment, whereas Botanical Clay (the installed community project of botanically textured tiles) will be physically embraced by the garden that created it. A juxtaposition celebrated by the official unveiling of the installed work in the Botanic Gardens coinciding with the Darwin gallery opening in February 2023.
Art plays a crucial role in social change. At a point in history where global pandemics and climate concerns are prompting public re-evaluation of the relationship between humans and the environment, Botanically Porcelain will evoke a timely narrative of re-growth and survival, hope and resilience as part of the global movement for environmental protection.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
Picture a walkway/path through a tropical field of organic growth, each piece similar but on closer inspection unique. Delicate but enduring; the very properties that make porcelain so valued, displayed en-masse so that the work speaks both of diversity and commonality within the human endeavour to save the planet that sustains us. A floor-based porcelain installation, an expanse of budding delicately rendered botanic forms, each exquisite on its own, collectively breath-taking and sublime.
Botanically Porcelain will be an 18-month project led by Darwin artist Dawn Beasley in partnership with the George Brown Botanic Gardens. Starting in 2021 and culminating in a three-venue exhibition tour in 2022.
The project will begin with Artist in the Gardens, with Dawn working direct from nature in the botanic gardens to produce mixed-media studies, recording shapes, forms and textures to inform later design work. Public interaction will be encouraged, and free Sunday in the Gardens drop-in workshops will foster public artistic engagement with nature.
As the project moves into the designing and ceramic production stages the work will move from the Gardens to Dawn's studio at Tactile Arts. The studio will be open to the public to continue to foster and build a public following as the work moves from Paper to Porcelain.
July will see the artist returning to the Gardens to run a thematically linked community project to produce botanically textured tiles for a community mosaic installation before returning to the studio for the intensive mass production stages of the project.
The community engagement activities throughout the project intentionally takes art to the community and brings the community into art spaces emulating the osmosis of plant influence into porcelain, and the installation of porcelain elements into a ‘garden’. This transitional theme is mirrored again in the exhibiting decisions for multiple venues creating a pilgrimage with conceptual links between the journey of creation and the hallowed ground of the formal gallery setting. Each transitional path adds weight to the intrinsic existential value of environmental care.
Botanically Porcelain: a touring exhibition:
- Botanically Porcelain will have its debut exhibition at the Australian Ceramic Triennale in Alice Springs,18th-22nd July 2022.
- The second exhibition will be at Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture centre in Katherine, 5th August - 17th September.
- The final exhibition will be in Darwin at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Parap in February 2023.
The formal gallery setting for all three shows creates a reverence to the immersive experience and conceptually isolates the work from the environment, whereas Botanical Clay (the installed community project of botanically textured tiles) will be physically embraced by the garden that created it. A juxtaposition celebrated by the official unveiling of the installed work in the Botanic Gardens coinciding with the Darwin gallery opening in February 2023.
Art plays a crucial role in social change. At a point in history where global pandemics and climate concerns are prompting public re-evaluation of the relationship between humans and the environment, Botanically Porcelain will evoke a timely narrative of re-growth and survival, hope and resilience as part of the global movement for environmental protection.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
