ELIZABETH EDMONDS

Edmonds

I have painted the Walpole Wilderness area many times, fascinated by the landscape’s history and narrative at different spatial and temporal scales, from microscopic fossil pollen records to wholistic interpretations of environmental change over thousands of years. This exploration has become such an integral part of my life, connecting with the landscape often in a visual introspective way. Working with ink on rice paper, drawing, following, and exploring the tree shape or branch line allows me time to consider the fragility and vulnerability of trees such as the Red-Flowering Gum (Corymbia ficifolia, yorgum) and Bull Banksia (Banksia grandis mungite). Both iconic and once more widespread, are now just holding on, being pushed to their natural limits with the pressure of a drying climate and impacts of clearing, disease and altered fire regimes. The drawings wax preservation adds a visual depth of field like an old black and white portrait photograph. A snapshot captured in time.

Dr Elizabeth Edmonds is a renowned research scientist as well as a visual artist. She lives and works in Walpole in the south west of WA, where she owns and operates Petrichor Gallery. Previously, she has worked in university research and teaching and still works on collaborative projects that inform her art practice.

Her artwork combines her palaeoecological knowledge of southwestern landscapes with a desire to raise awareness about ecologically significant communities such as peatlands and eucalypt habitats. Specialising in watercolour, peat paints and wax, her detailed fine ink drawings on paper are an intimate exploration of the identity of trees, each with their own distinctive qualities; collectively they represent diversity.

Since 2016 she has participated in numerous exhibitions including a solo show at the Western Australian Museum of the Great Southern, three times finalist in the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery’s South West Art Now FORM WA The Goods Shed and The Painted Tree Gallery with the SWAN23 tour, and group shows with the Collie Art Gallery, The Creative Grid WA Alternative Archive and Open Borders series. She is currently a recipient of the Eucalypt Australia Dahl Fellowship 2023 working on her The Tale of Two Trees project. Elizabeth has curated more than 27 exhibitions for visiting artists to the southwest region, teaches workshops regularly and her work is represented in private collections in Australia and overseas.