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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Connect with me

  • In the rose garden this morning, dawdling on the way to the studio, reluctant to go inside after an early morning walk down the lane with Charlie and the dogs. Feeling very lucky that isolation for us is a very different experience than for others. 🙏
  • These little radishes will appear in the next group show at the wonderful Corner Store Gallery, opening online, this Thursday at 8pm. Though doors won't be physically open, online sales will, and the excellent photography of @madi_young means you will see clearly both my work and the other fabulous local artists exhibiting! Take a peek @cornerstoregallery #buyfromthebush
  • In lieu of sharing the garden with human friends this weekend, we shared it with Olive and Pearl instead. We can though welcome you in a virtual world. If I could stroll through the garden with you in person I would, but here is a collection of snaps from today that will have to do. Cheers from us and warm wishes for the week ahead. Take care ❤
  • Imagine, wouldn't it be lovely to have wings? Paper wings will have to do. @sukihugh_gallery
  • The perfect stay at home and pantry stocking project is growing veges. Fresh organic produce, no supermarket queues, and the 1.5 metre distancing rule doesn't apply to hanging out with four legged friends. Hugo (golden retriever) loves picking peas, ever so gently between bared front teeth. Lollipop (whippet) prefers dried broad beans and crunches them loudly with terrible table manners, at odds with her delicate stature. She sits in waiting for unearthed curl grubs which she shakes violently before munching, as though trying to immobilise a creature much less inert. I let the patch go during our hot dry summer, but it's been brought back to life with newly planted lettuce, Asian greens, leeks, silverbeet, beetroot and brassicas added to existing beans, tomatoes and zucchini. The basil has burst into action, soon to become dozens of little bundles of pesto destined for the freezer. A job for this evening. The Pittosporum hedge had a shave this week too, fresh, crisp and clean cut. It's a great little microclimate inside, offering protection from the wind that pummels our hilltop garden. We planted it as tiny tubestock, less than 10cm tall in little 5cm pots. An exercise in patience, look at it now, 9 years on! We lost a couple in the drought, so it has a bit of a gappy smile on one side, I'm hoping it'll fill in with time. More patience. If a large patch isn't possible, even a pot or two can be planted up with edibles, kept by the back door for handy picking. Silverbeet and kale are handy for cut and come again snippings to steam or throw in the soup pot. And not so palatable to dogs. Worth a try!🌱
  • The Shadow of Wings exhibition @sukihugh_gallery may have closed it's physical doors, but we're not done yet! Works can still be purchased via the online catalogue, and numerous additional photos of each piece are available upon request. The little insect specimens remain adorning the walls of this gorgeous gallery, testiment that though times are tough, we're hanging in there! So many pieces found new homes last weekend despite the "opening you have when you're not having an opening". A huge thankyou to all who have invested in my work for the first time, or have returned for fourth and fifth additions to their collections. So, onwards we go, the exhibition continues though in a different form, and works are still available to purchase via the catalogue. Susan from Suki and Hugh, and I at my end, are happy to answer questions, send photos and bring the show to you via the gallery in the sky. Lucky we have wings! Stay well all, stay home, and stay in touch😊
  • When the world turns upside down, we seek a little of the normal in the familiar landscape that surrounds us. Morning walks with the boys and dogs, before our online school and studio days begin, will be our way to clear minds. I'm feeling lucky in so many ways - to have the garden, to live rurally, to already be a home-based business, to have big boys able to navigate their way through remote schooling, and to have this online community of friends. I can't help but think that this process is a global pressing of a reset button, forced rethinking of what is important, living with consideration, redefining needs from wants. We still have no toilet paper - evidently it's been been smuggled elsewhere - so I am also feeling thankful for the pile of The Land newspapers stuffed behind the man of the house's chair. Usually I lament them, now I am thankful for his forward thinking. Won't be long and they'll be tied with string in little square bundles beside the loo, reminiscent of forgotten shearers quarters. Take care all. We will make it to the other side!