The Garden Curator

Garden designer | Landscape designer | Landscape illustrator

Artist Statement & CV

Artist statement

Delicate, ethereal and finely detailed, Colleen’s works encourage the onlooker to slow, look closely, engage the imagination and connect with the cycle of life around us. Her meticulous art making process requires her to do the same.

Drawing on her background in horticulture and landscape design, Colleen’s unique art practice is a celebration of nature, both wild and cultivated.

Her delicate three-dimensional paper sculpture and mixed media works are reminiscent of herbarium and entomology specimens. Each finely drawn, painted and assembled piece is mounted onto paper using entomology pins, giving the appearance of floating. The delicate nature of the works and transient play of shadow signifies the fragility of the subject.

Colleen's inaugural solo exhibition, Into the Wilder at the Corner Store Gallery, Orange NSW, was a sellout.

ARTS PRACTICE

  • November 2017 | current. Full time artist
  • 2010|2018 Landscape designer specialising in hand rendered landscape plans

AWARDS

  • Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Top 100 Paper Artists 2019 (International)
  • Finalist, Little Things Art Prize, Saint Cloche Gallery NSW 2019
  • Finalist Pro Hart Outback Art Prize Broken Hill Regional Gallery NSW 2019
  • Finalist and winner of the Viewer’s Choice Award Little Things Art Prize Saint Cloche Gallery Paddington NSW, 2018
  • Recipient of the TNSW State Medal for Excellence in Horticulture 2010

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

  • The Shadow of Wings Suki and Hugh Gallery Bungendore March/April 2020

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

  • Into the Wilder Corner Store Gallery. Orange NSW 2019. Inaugural solo exhibition and a sellout

DUO/GROUP EXHIBITIONS

  • Rekindled Saint Cloche Upstairs Paddington NSW 2019 (with Ingrid Bowen, Samantha Mackie, Jane Gerrish)
  • Essentiae Gallery One88 Katoomba May 2019 (with Peter Worsley)
  • Unfurl Corner Store Gallery Orange NSW 2018 (Inaugural exhibition with sculptor Peter Worsley, a sellout)

EXHIBITIONS BY INVITATION OR APPLICATION

  • Here and Now Orange Regional Gallery NSW 2019
  • Finalist, Pro Hart Outback Art Prize Broken Hill Regional Gallery NSW 2019
  • 8 x 10 Corner Store Gallery Orange NSW 2019
  • Artisans in the Gardens Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney NSW 2018
  • Finalist and peoples choice winner - Little Things Art Prize Saint Cloche Gallery Paddington NSW 2018
  • Blue, Corner Store Gallery Orange NSW 2018
  • Just a Square Darling Mills Gallery Mittagong NSW 2018

COMMISSIONS

  • Numerous private commissions have been undertaken with works held in private collections in Australia and the USA

Media

  • Country Style Magazine feature story art issue 2020
  • Beautiful Bizarre Magazine top 100 Paper Artists published 2020
  • The Garden Clinic publication feature story Autumn 2020
  • Company Podcast, interview with Skye Manson 2019
  • Rural Women's Day Inspiring Rural Women feature 2019
  • The Planthunter Feature story and interview with Georgina Reid 2019
  • Central Western Daily newspaper article 2019
  • Rekindle Podcast panel interview with Robert Gerrish 2019
  • The Gardens Magazine Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens 2018
  • Discover Central West Magazine article 2018

Memberships

  • Member by invitation The Journeyperson arts collective Orange NSW
  • National Association for the Visual Arts

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  • I've loved @countrystylemag since day one, so it's super exciting to open the latest issue and find my clan in our little corner of the world within the pages! There are so many lovely stories of creative people in this art issue, such a great thrill to be included among them. Thankyou to the beautiful, warm and generous hearted @skye_manson for your words, the fabulous @brigidarnottphotography for your artful photography of my garden during the height of the drought and your skilful wrangling of our camera loving dogs, and of course to editor Victoria Carey and her team @countrystylemag for bringing it to fruition. I look forward to adding another 30 years to my existing 30 year collection of your fabulous magazine. xox
  • Something a little different, soon to fly off to my exhibition, The Shadow of Wings @sukihugh_gallery in Bungendore NSW from 21 March to 26 April. Not long now! ...more in stories😊
  • The front gate. The view through the windscreen arriving home from early morning runs to kids sport training today, there are benefits to rising early!
  • Just a glimpse, all will be revealed. Nearly ready for The Shadow of Wings @sukihugh_gallery ....just 4 weeks away and the countdown is on!
  • Old, tired, tattered.  Words that may conjure a sad picture, though the things to which they are applied are often the most beautiful. I picked up three aged metal trunks from @thebowermillthorpe recently, unable to resist their timeworn patina and imagined history.  These bruised and grazed vessels aren’t simply objects, they are the holders of stories.  Whose hands rested on them? What did they enclose? Where did they travel? In the garden too, time is the greatest ingredient. Sometimes it races, at others it lingers, though always more akin to a long meander than a sprint and best enjoyed when soaking up the scenery along the way.  Just like aged roses, often lovelier than their younger selves, age gives permission to relax, billow and mellow. Time…just…is. With it comes a richness that cannot be manufactured, the reward for patience and slow observation. The next Garden Curator newsletter is evolving, slowly, and after a particularly busy period it is a reflection upon time, “slow” garden and art making.  You are welcome to wander and pause with us, just amble on over to the link via my bio to sign up for the next letter.  It’ll arrive in a week or so, unfortunately not via snail mail, rather into your email inbox. See you there.☺
  • Such a thrill to find out last night that I've made it onto the @beautifulbizarremagazine list of the top 100 paper artists on insta! The list includes extraordinary artists from across the world, so to be among them is a wonderful surprise, so unexpected and humbling! Huge thanks to the magazine❤.
  • There's been little action in the vege patch this summer, though I managed a batch of pickled beetroot, and the table is supplied with good old fashioned zucchini slice (the one that appears in most community group cook books and on ram sale or school fundraiser catering tables). I have kept the perennials going, the asparagus and rhubarb, and potatoes have continued to multiply nestled under thick blankets of hay - I haven't got around to planting new ones for years, they just keep rolling on from one year to the next in successive generations. Harvesting them is like a mixed bag of lollies, an odd bunch and you never know what will be in the bag. The blotchy cream and pink King Edwards are our favourite. Delicious and worth seeking out. The last few carrots and dill have exploded in seedy umbels, and the basil is bolting too. I must get onto a stash of pesto for the freezer, perfect for quick dinners on winter nights late home. I'm keen to find and plant more perennial vegetables in the patch, the cut and come again things that keep rolling on for a full year and more with little fuss. Any suggestions on those you've had success with?