Imprints

Catalogue text for the exhibition Imprints, held at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart, 2002. The exhibition comprised a selection of my botanical photographs and handmade stationery.

Photography brings together some of my great loves: travel, the natural world, pattern and design, and the effects of colour and light. I’ve visited many terrains and have lived in five countries on three continents; photography is one way of recording my sensual experiences of these different places.

Often a sense of place is captured in the vegetation: both its detail of flower and foliage and its patterning across the landscape. I photograph both wild and domestic plants because I’m delighted by those occurring in their natural habitat and also by those with which people choose to surround themselves in their gardens.

This selection of photographs depicts some favourite plant images from Tasmania, where I live, South Africa, where I grew up, and areas where I have travelled or resided for shorter periods: Denmark, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, and the hot north of Australia.

Why Plants?

Why this obsession with the botanical world? Several things, I suppose: one, it’s inherited; two, it’s beautiful; three, plants stand still and are easy to catch on film! I’m also intrigued by their symbolism.

Plants are metaphors for many things. Our visual and verbal literature is strewn with an abundance of vegetation: trees with their protective canopies and rootedness; the ephemeral beauty of flowers. Seeds, fruits, leaves and buds hold universal meaning as manifestations of the cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration.

Plants also carry personal meanings for me. Particular trees and flowers evoke specific memories, places or people, and over the years have acquired a profound symbolism. The poplar is my ‘totem’ tree, for the one I spent so many hours in as a child in Cape Town, looking toward Table Mountain on the end of Africa. It evokes peace and warmth and the cool of its heart-shaped leaves I find soothing to the soul. Of flowers, I love the delicacy of English bluebells, daffodil and primrose, memories of a year spent in the Sussex countryside when I was nine. And I’m drawn like a bee to boungainvillea and hibiscus, purple jacaranda blossoms and bright canna lilies. These remind me of my African origins and I was thrilled to find abundant bougainvillea in Queensland and Darwin: its colour as intense as the longing I sometimes feel for Africa.

I’m sure my paternal grandmother is responsible for some of this! I was born in Zimbabwe, a place of great rock formations, savannah grasslands and flamboyant gardens. And I also remember the roses. They were the love of my grandmother, who was bent on creating an earthly paradise of flowers and who did so with skill and regularity each year, no mean feat in that harsh climate. Her gifts to me were the huge blown blooms, which I deconstructed petal by petal. Whether by accident or intent, her adoration for colourful flowers has passed on!

Later, living in Cape Town, I grew attached to sweetpeas, nasturtiums and yellow broom, loquat trees and pomegranate flowers, and the poplar tree. Cape Town is famed for its superb natural vegetation called fynbos, one of the six floral kingdoms and astonishingly rich in species despite its small geographical area. Many garden plants grown in Australia are native to the Cape, including agapanthus, sparaxis and pelargonia.

In 1986 my Dad was offered a job in Launceston. I’m afraid my first question when hearing of our impending emigration to Australia, was, are there poplar trees? The thought of a monopoly of eucalypts was daunting. Their beauty has grown on me, as have cushion plants and mountain berries and pandanus. An unexpected bonus was discovering four real seasons – blossom, daffodils, orange autumn leaves, the lot!

My botanical and photographic explorations continue: recent findings in Purnululu National Park, the Kimberly and Kakadu have amazed me with their unfamiliar beauty.

Watch out for new cards…