Nothing is so Transient as a Tree#1 - #4, Artist Books, inkjet prints on paper, redgum, and pine. Each 300 X 45 X 14cm. Out of Time#1 - #6, Inkjet print on tracing, acrylic and pine. Each: 30 X 30 X 20.5cm.. Exhibited: Re-embracing the Eucalypt, with Ruth Johnstone. Exhibited: Print Council of Australia Gallery, Melbourne 6 - 30 August, 2024. Photos: Lesley Duxbury.
At the end of each day, I run or walk 5kms of narrow tracks through the Briagolong Forest Red Gum Reserve, a remnant of what was once a vast grassy woodland of Gippsland Red Gum, (E. tereticornis sub. mediana) that stretched from the Strzelecki Ranges in the West to the Snowy River in the East. Here in this rigidly delineated, protected reserve the trees are slowly regenerating having been decimated by logging and land-clearing for dairy farms and agriculture in the 19th century and pine plantations more recently. As well as the densely growing trees I run through, I also pass massive stumps, and ghostly-white fallen trunks among the spindly growth of saplings, reminding me of the continuing, vulnerability of these critically endangered trees, the concern of the artist books, Nothing is so Transient as a Tree.
Eucalypts have long fascinated newcomers to Australia, from explorers such as Major TL Mitchell in the first half of the 19th century to John Eaton, a photographer in the early 20th century, who like me migrated from England. Through his iconic photographs of expansive landscapes, sparsely dotted with monumental eucalypts, Eaton was considered a gifted interpreter of the Australian landscape. My Out of Time series, takes a selection of his images along with further images of 19th century photographers of the Gippsland bush, to permeate my own photographs of the Briagolong Forest Red Gum Reserve, melding the past with the present through ghostly renditions
At the end of each day, I run or walk 5kms of narrow tracks through the Briagolong Forest Red Gum Reserve, a remnant of what was once a vast grassy woodland of Gippsland Red Gum, (E. tereticornis sub. mediana) that stretched from the Strzelecki Ranges in the West to the Snowy River in the East. Here in this rigidly delineated, protected reserve the trees are slowly regenerating having been decimated by logging and land-clearing for dairy farms and agriculture in the 19th century and pine plantations more recently. As well as the densely growing trees I run through, I also pass massive stumps, and ghostly-white fallen trunks among the spindly growth of saplings, reminding me of the continuing, vulnerability of these critically endangered trees, the concern of the artist books, Nothing is so Transient as a Tree.
Eucalypts have long fascinated newcomers to Australia, from explorers such as Major TL Mitchell in the first half of the 19th century to John Eaton, a photographer in the early 20th century, who like me migrated from England. Through his iconic photographs of expansive landscapes, sparsely dotted with monumental eucalypts, Eaton was considered a gifted interpreter of the Australian landscape. My Out of Time series, takes a selection of his images along with further images of 19th century photographers of the Gippsland bush, to permeate my own photographs of the Briagolong Forest Red Gum Reserve, melding the past with the present through ghostly renditions
Weathering #1, #2 and #3, inkjet prints each 300 X 130cm. The Lost Forest of Briagolong, Artist Book, Inkjet prints, redgum and carbon. 18.5 X 15.5 X 750cm. Exhibited: Fragile Earth: Breathe, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria. 8 June - 25 August, 2024. Photo: Lesley Duxbury.
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Embrace the Eucalypt 2024. Artist books: The Lost Forest of Briagolong, Inkjet prints, redgum, carbon, 18.5 X 15.5 X 750cm. and Denizens, Inkjet prints, interference watercolour, 26 X 300cm. Weathering#3, #6, #7 and #8, Inkjet prints. Each: 240 X 120 cm. Exhibited: Benalla Art Gallery, 17 May - 28 July, 2024. With Ruth Johnstone. Photos: Benalla Art Gallery
Embracing the Eucalypt 2023. Artist book The Lost Forest of Briagolong, Inkjet prints, redgum, carbon, 18.5 X 15.5 X 750cm.
Weathering#2 and #4, Inkjet prints. Each: 300 X 120 cm. A Walk in the Redgum Forest, Artist Book, Inkjet prints, silk paper, twine, brass, 15 X 40 X 16cm. Remnant. Cyanotypes, Eucalypt-toned cyanotypes, Inkjet prints and carbon, Carbon paper and graphite. Various sizes. Exhibited: Briagolong Art Gallery, 18 February-26 March 2023 with Ruth Johnstone. Photos: Lesley Duxbury
Weathering#2 and #4, Inkjet prints. Each: 300 X 120 cm. A Walk in the Redgum Forest, Artist Book, Inkjet prints, silk paper, twine, brass, 15 X 40 X 16cm. Remnant. Cyanotypes, Eucalypt-toned cyanotypes, Inkjet prints and carbon, Carbon paper and graphite. Various sizes. Exhibited: Briagolong Art Gallery, 18 February-26 March 2023 with Ruth Johnstone. Photos: Lesley Duxbury
DAM, Inkjet prints (each 60 X 80cm) and artist books. Exhibited: Terraqueous (with Stephen Wickham) Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, 2023.
Photos: Lesley Duxbury
Almost every day for one year, at the end of a daily walk accompanied by a dog, I took a photograph of the sky reflected in a small dam.
Photos: Lesley Duxbury
Almost every day for one year, at the end of a daily walk accompanied by a dog, I took a photograph of the sky reflected in a small dam.
If Forests Disappear#1 - #6 Inkjet prints. Each: 40 X 40 cm. Exhibited: Fragile Earth: Extinction Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale 2022
The curators of Fragile Earth: Extinction, Dr Louisa Waters and Melanie Caple, invited both local and national artists to explore the current ecological crisis, in response to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Having recently received the Songs of Disappearance CD from Birdlife Australia, which included the songs of 54 threatened birds nationally, I was interested (and dismayed) to find 6 of the birds, endemic to my local area of Gippsland, listed as endangered. Just 2 years previously thousands of acres of forests to the East of my area had been destroyed in the catastrophic fires of Black Summer.
In my work, if forests disappear… I have used the phonetic interpretation of the calls of the 6 birds along with descriptions of their voice and habitat from bird identification books to evoke a possible future without forests or the physical presence of many bird species.
The curators of Fragile Earth: Extinction, Dr Louisa Waters and Melanie Caple, invited both local and national artists to explore the current ecological crisis, in response to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Having recently received the Songs of Disappearance CD from Birdlife Australia, which included the songs of 54 threatened birds nationally, I was interested (and dismayed) to find 6 of the birds, endemic to my local area of Gippsland, listed as endangered. Just 2 years previously thousands of acres of forests to the East of my area had been destroyed in the catastrophic fires of Black Summer.
In my work, if forests disappear… I have used the phonetic interpretation of the calls of the 6 birds along with descriptions of their voice and habitat from bird identification books to evoke a possible future without forests or the physical presence of many bird species.
Shifting the Anthropocene: 4 views from the margins 2022. Artist book The Lost Forest of Briagolong, Inkjet prints, redgum, carbon, 18.5 X 15.5 X 750cm.
Weathering#1 - #4, Inkjet prints. Each: 300 X 120 cm. Texts on carbon paper. Each 30 X 21cm. Exhibited: Manningham Art Gallery July 2022 with Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham.
Photos: Charlie Kinross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJF7FCdQbZE
Taking its name from the unofficial description of the present-day epoch which has seen human activity dramatically impact the earth's climate and ecology, this exhibition is the expression of four artists' efforts to record, reflect upon and potentially enact change in how humanity views and interacts with the world.
Shifting the Anthropocene features the work of Lesley Duxbury, Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham who have variously photographed underwater ecosystems and stunning 400-year-old eucalypts, and collected and drawn remnants of plants destroyed by bushfire, amongst other creative acts.
The works are personal interpretations of the immediate and personal effects of climate change as the artists have witnessed them. They also pivot to celebrate instances where individuals and communities have saved endangered species or enacted change of environment laws through collective effort, thereby giving a hopeful and positive tenor to the exhibition overall.
Weathering#1 - #4, Inkjet prints. Each: 300 X 120 cm. Texts on carbon paper. Each 30 X 21cm. Exhibited: Manningham Art Gallery July 2022 with Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham.
Photos: Charlie Kinross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJF7FCdQbZE
Taking its name from the unofficial description of the present-day epoch which has seen human activity dramatically impact the earth's climate and ecology, this exhibition is the expression of four artists' efforts to record, reflect upon and potentially enact change in how humanity views and interacts with the world.
Shifting the Anthropocene features the work of Lesley Duxbury, Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham who have variously photographed underwater ecosystems and stunning 400-year-old eucalypts, and collected and drawn remnants of plants destroyed by bushfire, amongst other creative acts.
The works are personal interpretations of the immediate and personal effects of climate change as the artists have witnessed them. They also pivot to celebrate instances where individuals and communities have saved endangered species or enacted change of environment laws through collective effort, thereby giving a hopeful and positive tenor to the exhibition overall.
Closer than it Appears #1 - #4, Inkjet prints. Commissioned for 50 Year 50 Artists, LaTrobe Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, 2021 https://latroberegionalgallery.com/lesley-duxbury/ Photos: Lesley Duxbury
In 2020 I was awarded a commission from Latrobe Regional Gallery to make new work for the gallery’s 50th anniversary and exhibition with the theme of ‘land’, a critical question for the community of the Latrobe Valley as they face an uncertain future due to the closure of coal-powered power stations. For this project I undertook 4 walks in areas of remnant vegetation of the Latrobe Valley with a Black Mirror (or Claude Glass) to explore ways the landscape may have looked prior to European settlement and the clearing of native vegetation, and the ways it appears now. The areas under investigation fell into 4 broad categories within State and National Parks: riparian flats (Morwell River Falls Reserve), dry foothills (Moondarra State Park), plains woodland (Morwell National Park) and damp forest (Tarra-Bulga National Park). By using a Black Mirror my intention was to engage the perception of the viewer to see a transformed view of the land – a way of looking forward while also looking behind. This was not intended as longing for the past but more a ‘nostalgia for the present’, a way to re-imagine the future and the land of the Latrobe Valley as the industries of the region declined.
In 2020 I was awarded a commission from Latrobe Regional Gallery to make new work for the gallery’s 50th anniversary and exhibition with the theme of ‘land’, a critical question for the community of the Latrobe Valley as they face an uncertain future due to the closure of coal-powered power stations. For this project I undertook 4 walks in areas of remnant vegetation of the Latrobe Valley with a Black Mirror (or Claude Glass) to explore ways the landscape may have looked prior to European settlement and the clearing of native vegetation, and the ways it appears now. The areas under investigation fell into 4 broad categories within State and National Parks: riparian flats (Morwell River Falls Reserve), dry foothills (Moondarra State Park), plains woodland (Morwell National Park) and damp forest (Tarra-Bulga National Park). By using a Black Mirror my intention was to engage the perception of the viewer to see a transformed view of the land – a way of looking forward while also looking behind. This was not intended as longing for the past but more a ‘nostalgia for the present’, a way to re-imagine the future and the land of the Latrobe Valley as the industries of the region declined.
Artist Books and Untitled 1-6, Installation view, Exhibited: Notes From the Field, Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021 Photo Jeremy Weihrauch. https://field-not.es/
and: Between Two Sites, Burrinja Cultural Centre, Upwey, Victoria, 2023
and: Between Two Sites, Burrinja Cultural Centre, Upwey, Victoria, 2023
Installation view, Notes From the Field, Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021
Artist Books (Fieldwork and Through a Black Mirror) Installation view, Notes From the Field, Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021
Future Landscape#1-#4 2020. Photogravure and Inkjet prints. Each: 40 X 30 cm. Exhibited: Swan Hill Prints & Drawings Prize 2020. Finalist
The motivation for Future Landscape #1 – #4 was the devastating bushfires of 2019/2020 in NSW and Victoria, which have left vast tracts of country to waste, smouldering forests and unrecognisable landscapes. What was once green and alive with wildlife is monochrome and dead. Nowhere on earth is safe from the effects of global warming and it is said that Mars once looked like our earth but the equivalent of climate change rendered it dry, dusty and lifeless. In these prints I have represented the fire-ravaged natural environment with images of volcanic, treeless landscapes currently to be found on earth in places such as Iceland and annotated each with a phrase that describes the surface of Mars to indicate the similarity of our respective fates.
The motivation for Future Landscape #1 – #4 was the devastating bushfires of 2019/2020 in NSW and Victoria, which have left vast tracts of country to waste, smouldering forests and unrecognisable landscapes. What was once green and alive with wildlife is monochrome and dead. Nowhere on earth is safe from the effects of global warming and it is said that Mars once looked like our earth but the equivalent of climate change rendered it dry, dusty and lifeless. In these prints I have represented the fire-ravaged natural environment with images of volcanic, treeless landscapes currently to be found on earth in places such as Iceland and annotated each with a phrase that describes the surface of Mars to indicate the similarity of our respective fates.
Neither Here nor There#1 2019. Photogravure and Inkjet print
Neither Here nor There#2 2019. Photogravure and Inkjet print
Closing the Distance 2019. Inkjet print 75 X 100 cm. Exhibited: Parallel Universe at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne 2019
Beyond a Certain Point#1 - #4 2018. Inkjet prints. Each 80 X 100 cm. Exhibited: De-Natured at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, 2018.
And Clouds Passing Slowly... 2018. Inkjet and relief print. 84 X 120 cm
