Symbiosis

HUMANS AREN’T TOO DIFFERENT from our floral friends.

Artist Dawn Beasley has taken a subtle and delicate look at one of the main similarities between plant and human in her exhibition, Symbiosis.

“When I started, my focus was on generally exploring creation – birth, growth, life, death and regeneration. But the more I got into it, and studied the biology behind the shapes, I realised just how similar plant and human reproductive organs actually are,” she says.

“So over the year it’s taken me to complete this body of work, the pieces have sort of morphed from strictly botanical representations to more human like forms. It became a ‘symbiosis’ of ideas where the two elements, botanical and human, worked together.”

The exhibition features intricate pink and white porcelain sculptures, inspired by seedpods, flowers, coral, lichen and fungi, with nothing too obviously naughty…

“It’s not R-rated, but yes, there is a strong phallic vibe to fungus and the male inner part of flowers, and vulvic one to petals and seedpods too,” Beasley says.

Symbiosis THU 15 SEP | ARTIST FLOOR TALK – SAT 7 SEP, 12-1PM | TACTILE ARTS | tactilearts.org.au