The places we shape ultimately shape us.
Artist and garden mentor Colleen Southwell, known as The Garden Curator, helps people find new connection with the spaces they inhabit.
Her considered garden making and evocative artworks shape places that feel immersive, nurturing and deeply personal, while inspiring a more intentional and meaningful way of living.
AS SEEN IN
Which artful path will you take?
Courses
Online courses and immersive workshops to help you grow your garden with heart, art and story.
Field Notes
Garden making through an artist’s lens - downloadable guides for a making a beautiful and enriching garden.
Artwork
Discover Colleen’s intricate paper artworks, inspired by the garden and collected worldwide.
MEET COLLEEN SOUTHWELL
Colleen Southwell is an artist and Garden Mentor.
As an artist, her focus is paper sculpture, creating intricate, three-dimensional works inspired by the botanical, entomological worlds. Each element is formed by hand in her small tin studio near Orange, NSW, using finely cut paper, pigment, watercolour, delicate wire and occasional found materials. Mounted with entomology pins, each piece appears to float, with shadow forming part of the work itself. The result is both scientific and poetic, holding depth, atmosphere and a strong sense of presence. Her process is meticulous and measured - requiring patience, precision and a deep respect for detail.
Alongside her artistic practice, Colleen is a Garden Mentor, guiding others to create gardens with intention and an artist's eye. Drawing on a lifelong connection to cultivated landscapes, she helps people see beyond planting, to shape places that feel considered, layered and alive.
Her work, both in art and gardens, explores the quiet complexity of the natural world. Compositions are reverent and contemplative, inviting a slower way of seeing.
Discover the art of creating beautiful gardens with heart, story and purpose through self-paced learning or guided mentorship.
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Hear from our community of creatives
Maggie Mackellar – Author
"Colleen Southwell has a rare gift. She can look at a landscape and see a garden, and she can look at a garden, a tiny moment of it a hidden bird’s nest, seed heads moving in the wind, and see art."
Sandra Ross – Ross Garden Tours, The Garden Clinic and Your Garden Magazine.
"Colleen’s garden making is intrinsically woven into her extraordinary creative art works. Her talent is steeped in a deep understanding of the magical web of life that she interprets in paper."
Jackie Elliott – founder, Rural Women’s Day
"Colleen has a rare gift for helping people see beauty differently. Through both her art and her gardens, she invites you to slow down, notice the details and create with intention."
Tina Skipper, My Rural Retreat
"Colleen is one of the most insightful, creative and inspiring gardeners I have worked alongside. Her garden teachings have a way of making you thoughtfully consider your space."
