GARDEN FOR AN ALCHEMIST
13 March - 5 April 2025
Garden for an alchemist
“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” - Dylan Thomas, 1933
Janet Laurence is a prominent Sydney-based artist whose work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Her practice explores the complex and often conflicting relationship between humans and the natural world, particularly in the face of environmental challenges like climate change. Laurence creates immersive environments that investigate the interconnections between organic elements and natural systems, blending themes of ecological healing, communal loss, and the search for a deeper connection with the life forces of nature.
Laurence is an Adjunct Professor at UNSW’s Faculty of Art and Design and has received numerous prestigious fellowships, including those from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Churchill Trust, and the Australia Council. She also received the Alumni Award for Arts from UNSW. In 2017, she was a visiting fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) in Germany and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Australian Museum in 2015. That same year, she represented Australia at the COP21/FIAC Artists for Paris Climate exhibition and the Biocenosis 21 at the IUCN in Marseilles. In 2021, she was awarded the Antarctic Fellowship, completing her residency in Antarctica in 2022.
Laurence’s extensive exhibition history includes major solo shows such as Tears of Dust at the Museum of Australian Photography in Melbourne (2024), Entangled Garden for Plant Memory at the Yu-hsui Museum in Taiwan (2020), and the 2019 survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. She has also exhibited at renowned institutions like the Koenig Museum in Bonn, Germany (Nach der Natur, 2019), the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Matter of the Masters, 2017), and featured in Know My Name at the Australian National Gallery in 2022. In 2025, she will present a solo exhibition at the Alfred Erhardt Stiftung in Berlin.
Her work is represented in museum, university, corporate, and private collections, as well as in architectural and landscaped public spaces.
The rocks in this exhibition have been loaned from Blinman Dome Diaper.