The Botanical Art Society of Australia has participated in a groundbreaking collaboration between botanical artists, organizations, and institutions worldwide, creating and exhibiting botanical artworks of native plants found in each of 25 participating countries, representing artists and plants of six continents. This worldwide exhibition brought together artists and the public to highlight the role contemporary botanical artists play in calling attention to the need to preserve our botanical diversity. Each country boasts unique habitats and plants that are common, rare, or threatened. |
In Australia the exhibition was held in Canberra at the Ainslie Art Centre, Braddon from 18 May to 27 May 2018. BASA has produced a beautiful printed full-colour catalogue of the 109 works that were chosen to hang in their exhibition which is available for sale for A$20 + P&P by clicking below. | The works chosen for the exhibition had to feature plant species of Australia, the definition of which is ‘any wild plant indigenous to Australia, including natural hybrids, but excluding any cultivar, man-made hybrids, and naturalized exotics’. Entries were solicited from botanical artists across Australia and eventually one hundred and nine works were chosen to hang in the exhibition. Jurors for the exhibition were renowned botanical artists Beverly Allen, Leonie Norton, and Jenny Phillips and botanists David Albrecht and Anna Monro. From these selected works, 40 were chosen to be sent digitally around the world for viewing in the other participating countries. These were chosen to showcase both the talent of our botanical artists and the diversity of our native flora. Each country provided a digital slide show of up to 40 works, which were compiled with all of the other countries images and shown at each venue during the run of the exhibition. Some of these shows including Australia’s are available on the Botanical Art Worldwide YouTube channel. Countries participating included Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia, Scotland, Southern Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. If you would like to find out more about all the countries you can view the Botanical Art Worldwide website. |