Flora Photographica Aotearoa

Opening in the Main Gallery
Saturday 24 May 1 – 3pm hosted by Maggie Barry ONZM, MP for North Shore

From Wanganui’s McNamara Gallery Photography and as part of the Auckland Festival of Photography, the Depot Artspace is pleased to present an exhibition that explores our indigenous and exotic botanical world through some of New Zealand’s most renowned photographers.

Laurence Aberhart, Greta Anderson, Wayne Barrar, Janet Bayly, Andrew Beck, Gary Blackman, Rhondda Bosworth, Joyce Campbell, Ben Cauchi, Max Coolahan [1918–1985], Lisa Crowley, Derek Henderson, Frank Hofmann [1916–1989], John Johns [1924–1999], Ian Macdonald, Anne Noble, Richard Orjis, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Haruhiko Sameshima, C. Brian Smith

‘Flowers, in art, are usually less innocent and more complicated than might be imagined…’ [1]

They ‘…are privileged objects of the imagination not because they are the most beautiful but because they are the most imaginable.’ [2] From its beginning, photography has engaged with science and developed a special relationship with flower motifs. Images of the great variety of different plant and flower species serve as a ‘substitute’ for the traditional herbarium.

Photographers frame our indigenous and exotic botanical world, depicting isolated specimens or plant groupings, both arranged and in the natural environment. Repeating themes are formalism, repetition, lyricism, symbolism and metaphor; including subjects anthropomorphized through photography, and traditional notions associated with the flower as a marker for the transience, ambivalence and beauty of human existence. Expanding this aspect ‘…the uncompromised beauty of the flowers, which never perishes, their concept and identity as objects of beauty remain intact, eternal, despite their imminent fate.’ [3]

In this changing world, our physical co-dependence on plants, and their environment, is becoming increasingly evident; emphasising the connectedness of all things.

[1] Elaine Scarry, ‘Imagining Flowers: Perceptual mimesis (particularly delphinium)’, Representations, No.57, Winter 1997, p 94
[2] Andrew Graham-Dixon, The Independent, 1992
[3] Jiang Zhi, ‘Love Letters’ photography-now.com 31.5,12

GALLERY TALK: 2pm Saturday 31st of May with Ann Elias, Associate Professor, Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney. She will also be in conversation with photographer Peter Peryer, formerly a long term Devonport resident. 

This exhibition is supported by Maggie Barry MP and Grant Kerr.
Image: Peter Peryer, Veil (2012)