BOTANICAL { 27 Jul - 22 Sep } Banks’ Florilegium BOTANICAL { 27 Jul - 22 Sep } Drawn from Nature Shapes of Nature { 13 Jul - 25 Aug }

BOTANICAL

Sat 27 July - Sun 22 September | Burrinja Gallery

Burrinja is delighted to present Botanical, a dual exhibition centred on Botanical Illustration Art, which combines a showcase of contemporary practice and a journey back to the ‘roots’ of British/Australian botany.

Drawn from Nature: Botanical Illustration between Art and Science is a group exhibition featuring some of Victoria’s most accomplished botanical illustrators. On display are water colour paintings, pencil drawings and graphite illustrations of local and exotic species. Also included are four studies by Celia Rosser, who is known and celebrated as ‘the Banksia Lady’.

The Initiation of Australian Botany: Selections from Banks’ Florilegium presents engravings from Banks’ Florilegium, a renowned record of plants collected by amateur botanist Joseph Banks and his team on Captain Cook’s first voyage around the world (1768-1771).

Botanical is also accompanied by a range of engaging public programs.

Please join us for the dual exhibition's official opening on Sunday 28 July, from 2pm, with opening remarks by Gordon Morrison, former director of Art Gallery of Ballarat.

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Galleries 01 & 02

Drawn from Nature: Botanical Illustration between Art and Science

Contemporary botanical art by renowned Victorian illustrators Amanda Ahmed, Craig Lidgerwood, David Reynolds, Deb Chirnside, Dianne Emery, Janet Matthews, Jessie Rose Ford, John Pastoriza Piñol, Mali Moir, Margo Heeley, Marta Salamon, Martha Iserman, Miffy Gilbert and Simon Deere. With works by Celia Rosser.

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Gallery 03

The Initiation of Australian Botany: Selections from Banks’ Florilegium

The Florilegium is a record of plants collected by Joseph Banks and his team on Captain James Cook’s first voyage around the world. In an extraordinary effort, over 700 copperplates were eventually produced for printing. Although intended as a contribution to science, the Florilegium was never published in Banks’ lifetime, and remarkably, it took another 200 years until the engravings were printed for the first time in colour as intended. A selection of these will be on display.

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Garden Tours

Discover the beauty of nature showcased in our Botanical dual exhibition first-hand by exploring diverse gardens in and around Melbourne.

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banner image credits: Miffy Gilbert, ‘Golden Wattle’, watercolour on Arches 300gsm, 2022 • Banksia ericifolia, colour engraving and etching (à la poupée) after water colour by John Frederick Miller 1773 and drawing by Sydney Parkinson 1770, engraving by R Hughes 1986 after Daniel MacKenzie and Thomas Scratchley. (c) Alecto Historical Editions / Trustees of the Natural History Museum. Photography by James Hughes, 2024. Private collection • Trish Campbell, ‘Scar Lines - Ochre’, Acrylic paint on canvas, 2023