Replant: a new generation of botanical art

Replant is an excursion through the eyes of six artists into the remarkable world of plants in the tropical north of Australia. This body of work explores the unique characteristics of species that survive and prosper through the climatic extremes of monsoonal rains, dry weather and wild fires 

Replant reflects the traditional role of women as gatherers of food and holders of knowledge, combined with the rise of printmaking as a significant medium for Indigenous artists.

The Replant TeamArtists

Deborah Wurrkidj from Maningrida, Fiona Hall from Adelaide

Irene Mungatopi from the Tiwi Islands, Judy Watson from Brisbane

Marita Sambono from Daly River, Winsome Jobling from Darwin

Ethno botanist

Glenn Wightman from the Northern Territory Herbarium Darwin

Print Makers

Basil Hall, Jo Diggens and Natasha Rowell from Basil Hall Editions in Darwin

Photographer

Peter Eve, Monsoon Studios Darwin

Coordinators

Angus Cameron and Rosemary Cameron from Nomad Art Productions Darwin

Dr Greg Leach – Director of Wildlife in the Northern Territory

The Replant team gathered at Daly River, 230 kilometres southwest of Darwin in March 2006. The artists explored the scientific, cultural and social aspects of Indigenous plant species with traditional knowledge custodians and ethno botanist Glenn Wightman. Together they distilled ideas and visions in an acutely observed survey of Top End flora and environment. The group then returned to Darwin to the printmaking studio of master printmaker Basil Hall to resolve the work.

Replant: a new generation of botanical art

The Artists

Deborah Wurrkidj

I live at Maningrida Community in Arnhem Land. I am an artist and a weaver. I made these etchings about bush plants.

 

The first one is Black plum. It has small fruit. We collect them in a billycan to share with all the family. They grow in my grandfather’s and my grandmother’s country. We eat them raw, they taste sweet.

 

My Grandmother taught me about weaving with Pandanus. She showed me how to make colours for the weavings from different roots. The pattern in the etching is that weaving.

Deborah Wurrkidj 2006

Winsome Jobling

In February I was making paper from new Spear grass half a metre high. By April in the Daly River the Spear grass was two metres high, topped with thick, drooping spearheads. The grass dominated the landscape and the horizon disappeared.

   

Spear grass seeds are perfectly designed to fall, seed first and embed into the soil. Many pierce the leaves of under storey shrubs on their way to the ground.

 

Winsome Jobling 2006

Fiona Hall

In the bush at Daly River at the climax of the wet season, the problem could have been one of finding a conceptual lead into the overabundance of plants and the battalions of insects which inhabit the undergrowth.

 

I came to view the bush as both battle ground and site of extraordinary entrepreneurial inventiveness and cooperation, in which each organism, by way of staking its claim and setting up home and finding sustenance played its part as landlord or tenant, and took its turn as predator then perhaps prey.

Fiona Hall 2006

Judy Watson

I wanted to show the meshing and interconnection of everything that we were viewing and experiencing in the bush. The end of the wet season was a complex time of year to identify plants. The Spear grass was like a matrix or veil through which we saw the Sand Palms and other plants. It was taller than us and we were within it, not able to see very far.

 

Recently I read Marcia Langton’s accounts of Aboriginal people in north Queensland hiding in the long grass evading white authorities and the massacres of their people in the early years of contact.

 Judy Watson 2006

Marita Sambono

I am from Nauiyu Community near the Daly River in the Northern Territory. MalakMalak people are the traditional owners but ten other language groups also live there. I have made these etchings about our Ngan’gikurunggurr country.

The first one is the Water-lilies from the wetlands around Daly River. We call them minimindi. We eat the leaves when they are young and we eat the flowers in the wet season. Later on we collect the seeds and cook them up or we eat them raw.

Fog Dreaming is my grandmother’s Dreaming. I am thinking about my grandmother when I make this drawing. It is about a special place in her country where there are holes in the ground. Steam comes out from those holes and makes the fog.  

Marita Sambono 2006

Irene Mungatopi

I made this etching of the Green Plum. It is called yankumwani in my language. It grows in the bush on Tiwi Islands where I come from. We walk along the bush at the end of the dry season and we see those plums hanging down. We eat them straight from the tree. They taste lovely. They have a white flesh and a seed inside. We eat the flesh and throw the seed away.

 

I also did a soft ground etching of pinyama, the Pink Beach Apple (Syzygium suborbiculare). We eat it in the wet season; it changes to pink and red, then we know it is ready for eating. There are lots of pinyama on Melville Island.

Irene Mungatopi 2006

The Workshop

The Replant artists first gathered at the Northern Territory Herbarium to look at the plant collection and talk to the scientists

Artists talking with ethno botanist Glenn Wightman about the plants in the scientific way of naming and classifying plants

Fiona Hall collecting plants on the side of the road

The Replant team then drove to Daly River, about three hours from Darwin

When we arrived the Daly River was starting to flood

Glenn Wightman, Judy Watson, Marita Sambono, Patricia Marrfurra, Biddy Lindsay and Isabel Mungatopi

Once at Daly River the artists went out into the bush with Traditional Knowledge Custodians Marita

Sambono, Patricia Marrfurra and Biddy Lindsay

Fiona Hall and Marita Sambono during a shower of rain

Judy Watson

Irene’s Birthday

The Replant team stayed at Daly River for most of the first week

Master printmaker Basil Hall set up a studio at Merrepen Art Centre as the artists brought back material and ideas from their excursions into bush

Basil Hall and Judy Watson pressing a soft ground etching plate

Morning tea at Merrepen Art Centre

Deborah Wurrkidj and Jo Diggens looking at prints

Winsome Jobling working with Spear grass

In the second week the artists returned to Darwin and to Basil Hall Editions to proof the prints

The Art

Deborah Wurrkidj Pandanus 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Deborah Wurrkidj Long Yam 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Deborah Wurrkidj Black Plum 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Fiona Hall Green Ant Nest 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Fiona Hall Shrubby Dillenia Leaf and wasp nest 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Fiona Hall Palm and Paperwasp 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Fiona Hall Sundew 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Fiona Hall Wattle and Mantle 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Irene Mungatopi Green Plum leaf 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Irene Mungatopi Red Bush Apple 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Judy Watson batwing coral, red bean tree 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Judy Watson sand palm, dodder laurel, flat-leaf plant 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Judy Watson sand palm/resilience 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Judy Watson sand palm/resistance 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Marita Sambono Fog Dreaming 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Marita Sambono Under water lilies 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Marita Sambono Water-lilies 2006 etching on paper 33 x 24.5 cm

Winsome Jobling Fertile 2006 etching on paper and chîne collė on hand made paper, (banana, cotton, sugar palm and gamba grass) 33 x 24.5 cm

Winsome Jobling Spear Grass 2006 etching on paper and chîne collė on hand made paper, (banana, cotton, sugar palm and gamba grass) 33 x 24.5 cm

Winsome Jobling The Wet 2006 etching on paper and chîne collė on hand made paper, (banana, cotton, sugar palm and gamba grass) 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Hidden Currents 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Radiance 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Fragile 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Resonant Depths 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Spear grass 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

Peter Eve Ironwood Leaf 2006 photograph 33 x 24.5 cm

The Exhibitions

The Minister for Natural Resources Environment and the Arts, Marion Scrymgour opening Replant as part of the Darwin Festival at the Darwin Botanic Gardens in August 2006

Artists donating a Replant Folio to Marion Scrymgour MLA for the Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts.

Replant as part of the Darwin Festival 2006

Replant Darwin 2006

Replant Darwin 2006

Replant Darwin 2006

Replant Darwin 2006

Replant Darwin 2006

Replant at the Queensland Herbarium as part of the Brisbane Rivers Festival, September 2006

The opening of Replant at the Queensland Herbarium

Judy Watson’s Replant etchings at the Queensland Herbarium

Replant at the Queensland Herbarium

Acknowledgements

 Replant was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and the Northern Territory Government through the Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts and the Research and Innovation Board &

Fund. 

Our thanks to the MalakMalak people, traditional owners of the Daly River Region, Merrepen Art Centre, Dr Greg Leach, Glenn Wightman, Basil Hall Editions, Monsoon Photographic Studio, Darwin Festival, Don Whyte Framing, Grants Plants and Maintenance, Merridy

Pitcher and Kate Smith for their generous support.

Congratulations to the artists for their enthusiastic participation and the outcome of the art.

All photographic images courtesy Peter Eve © 2006

All art images are reproduced courtesy the artists © 2006

For further information contact

Angus and Rose Cameron 

Nomad Art Productions 3/3 Vickers Street Parap NT 0820

Phone & Fax (08) 89816382 email: nomad@nomadart.com.au

www.nomad@nomadart.com.au