The botanical prints are a collaboration with place, with Country, with the earth. Through botanical printmaking, I learn to listen to Country, to pause, to reflect, to pay attention to the seasons. I am remembering my ancestors old ways of being in connection with place. Displacement from my homelands of Ireland as a baby due to colonisation and conflict, along with growing up in Australia without learning respectful ways of being guests here on Country, has contributed to my disconnection and feeling adrift and ungrounded. Through botanical printmaking (and from listening to and observing Indigenous ways), I am learning how to anchor myself and nourish myself through my connection with Country.

Through my botanical prints series, I celebrate the beauty and abundance found in plants. The multi-layered process of creating prints and dyed fabrics is a wondrous alchemy that can occur when humans collaborate with the earth.

The botanical prints series is an inquiry through which I seek to navigate respectful ways to connect with Country, having grown up amidst a white Australian culture that largely dismisses First Nations protocols for being on Country.

I started working with wood after participating in a series of furniture building workshops in 2019 using reclaimed pallet wood. The first piece of furniture I made was a bookshelf to upgrade from my existing milk crate bookshelf. During the final workshop I discovered the world of pyrography and created burnt designs into my wood pieces.

At around the time I started building with pallet wood, a friend was making necklaces from protea seed pods and I was struck by the stunning spiral pattern in each pod. I had the urge to capture the pattern by attempting to draw it, and I soon discovered that the pattern is based on the Fibonacci Sequence, a number ratio that is reflected everywhere in nature, from seed heads to snail shells. The beautiful spiralling patterns feature often in the wood art I have produced. Nature is amazing!