CV + BIO
Janet Laurence
Exploring notions of art, science, imagination, memory, and loss, Janet Laurence’s practice examines our physical, cultural and conflicting relationship to the natural world through both site specific, gallery and museum works. Working in varying mediums, Laurence creates immersive environments that navigate the interconnections between life world.
Her work explores what it might mean to heal, albeit metaphorically, the natural environment, fusing this sense of communal loss with a search for connection with powerful life-forces. Laurence’s work alerts us to the subtle dependencies between water, life, culture and nature in our eco-system. In the face of this, we do yearn for a form of alchemy, for the power of enchantment and transformation. Her work reminds us that art can provoke its audience into a renewed awareness about our environment.
Laurence has been a recipient of Rockefeller, Churchill and Australia Council Fellowships, and the Alumni Award for Arts, UNSW. Laurence was a Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW, a former Board Member of the VAB Board of the Australia Council, was Visiting Fellow at the NSW University Art and Design, and the 2016/2017 Hanse-WissenschaftKolleg (HWK) foundation fellowship.
Laurence was the Australian representative for the COP21/FIAC, Artists 4 Paris Climate 2015 Exhibition, exhibiting a major work – Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef – at the Muséum National D’Historie Naturelle, in Paris, France.
In 2019 she had a major solo survey exhibition at the MCA, After Nature.
Laurence’s work is included in many Museum, University and Corporate collections as well as within architectural and landscaped public places, worldwide.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Burnt Sea, Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
2024 Tears of dust, PHOTO 2024, Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), VIC
2023 Once Were Forests, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Entangled Garden for Plant Memory, Yu-hsui Museum, Taiwan
2019 The Palm at the End of the Mind, The Johnston Collection, Melbourne Janet Laurence: After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2018 What Colour is the Sacred?, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne 2017 The Matter of The Masters, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Transplant: A forest for chlorophyll collapse, Momentum, Berlin Inside the Flower, IGA Berlin Lost Habitats, Nautilus Exhibition, Oldenburger, Germany Phytophilia, Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
2016 The Pleasure of Love, October Salon, Belgrade The 13th Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador Habitat, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW Auftrag Landschaft, Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, Germany Deep Breathing, Australian Musueum, Sydney Troubled Water, UNSW Galleries, Sydney H2O Water Bar, Paddington Water Reservoir, City of Sydney, NSW
2015 Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, Grande Galerie de l’Evolution at Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris Antrhopocene, Fine Arts Society Contemporary, London, UK Momentum, Kuntsquartier Bethanien, Berlin
2014 Plants Eye View, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney, NSW A Case Study, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Austrlaia. Residue, Hugo Mitchell Gallery, Adelaide
2013 The Ferment, Fine Art Society Contemporary, London Plants Eye View, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
2012 After Eden, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney Avalanche, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne Fabeled, BREENSPACE, Sydney The Alchemical Garden of Desire, McClelland Gallery, VIC
2011 In Memory of Nature, Glasshouse Regional Gallery, Port Macquarie, NSW
2010 What Can a Garden Be?, BREENSPACE, Sydney Janet Laurence, Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
2009 Things that Disappear, Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
2008 Crimes against the Landscape, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne Landscapes and Residues, Jan Marton Art, Brisbane Reflections on a Green World, Dusseldorf Gallery, Perth
2007 Greenhouse, bildkultur galerie, Stüttgart, Germany Botanical Residues/Ischaemic Land, Sherman Galleries, Sydney
2006 Janet Laurence, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne Birdsong, Object Gallery, Sydney
2005 Janet Laurence: A Survey Exhibition, Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
2004 Verdant works, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Ferment, Faculty of Art & Design Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne Glasshouse, Sherman Galleries Hargrave, Sydney
2001 Veiling Space: Incarnations, Uniting Church, Paddington, Sydney
2000 Muses, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
1998 Unfold, Gallery APA, Nagoya, Japan
1997 Unfold, Project Space, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1996 States of Matter, Michael Milburn Gallery, Brisbane Less Stable Elements, University Gallery, Newcastle
1995 pH series, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
1994 Alchemical Works, Gallery APA, Nagoya, Japan Lunami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1993 The Measure of Light, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
1992 Janet Laurence, Claybrooke Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1991 Rare, Seibu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1989 Blindspot, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney Pier and Ocean, City Gallery, Melbourne
1988 From the Shadow, Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra
1987 The Blind Spot on an Old Dream of Symmetry, Milburn + Arte, Brisbane Meiosis, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne 1986 Spells of Origin, Wollongong Regional Gallery, Wollongong, NSW 1985 Janet Laurence, Garry Anderson Gallery, Sydney Life is Probably Round, Artspace, Sydney Blindspot, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney
1984 Ice Memory, Avago Gallery, Sydney
1983 Toiana, Adelaide Festival of Arts Gallery, Adelaide The Madonna in the Stone Has a Memory, University Art Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne Memories in the Stone, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1982 Janet Laurence, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Recollections, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, QLD
1981 Notes from the Shore, I.C.A. Central Street, Sydney
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 LEGACY: 2025, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Sydney Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Apposite Ground, RACV Members Club, Bourke St, Melbourne
Melbourne Art Fair, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne Convention Centre
The Fleeting Self, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
2024 A Land for the Living, Bathurst Gallery of Art, Australia
Sydney Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Photography: Real & Imagined, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Beating About the Bush, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria
2023 Set of Keys, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Sydney Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Know One Place, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Transpieces Design, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Venice, Italy
2022 The Edge: Of The Sphere, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Syndey Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Antartic Futures, University of Wollongong Gallery, Wollongong, NSW
Eucalyptusdom, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Watershed: 50 Artists, 50 Years, Betts Gallery, Tasmania Fragile
Earth: Extinction, Gippsland Art Museum, Victoria
Above the Canopy, Townhall Gallery Boondara, Victoria
Museum of Waters, Echigo-Tsumarti Art Trienniale, Japan
Earth Canvas, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
National Photography Prize 2022, Murry Art Museum Albury, NSW
Image Reverse, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Destination Sydney: The Natural World, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
2021 Terra Australis Revisited, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna
Struck, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Art from Elsewhere, Kulturforum Ansbach, Germany
The McClelland Collection: 50 Years, McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, VIC
Requiem, Sydney Festival at Paddington Reservoir, Sydney
TREE of LIFE: a testament to endurance, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
Tree Story, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
Earth Canvas, touring exhibition Australia-wide 2020 Minutiae, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne Secret Garden, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
Critical Mass: The Art of Planetary Health, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba
Courants Verts, Fondation EDF, Paris Terra Australis - A Survey of Contemporary Art, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna
2019 Arboreal Narratives, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney
Nach der Natur, Koening Museum, Bonn, Germany
Teatro Della Terra Alienata ‘Reimagining the Fate of the Great Barrier Reef’, Palazzo Dell’arte, Milan, Italy
Continuous Regeneration, Columbia Circle, Shanghai, China
Conresponse, Beijing, China
2018 All We Can’t See: Illustrating The Nauru Files, The Yellow House Gallery, Sydney
2017 Framing Nature, McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin, Victoria
Landscape of Loss, UN Conference on Climate Change, Berlin
Transplant, Momentum, Berlin, Germany Moving Plants, Kunsthalle Rønnebæksholm , Copenhagen, Denmark Sydney Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Seeing Science, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, NSW
Force of Nature, Ikono TV, Berlin Fragil II, KWGallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Lost Habitats, Nautilus Exhibition, Oldenburger, Germany
Warning Shot, Topographie De l’art, Paris Force of Nature II, Art Pavilion in Mile End, London
2016-17 Project Landscape, ZKR - Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin
Troubled Waters, UNSW Galleries; Syndey and Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, SA
2016 A Medicinal Maze, Novartis Campus: Sculpture and Medicinal Garden, Sydney, NSW
The 13th Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador
Antrhopocene, Fine Arts Society Contemporary, London, UK
The Pleasure of Love, October Salon, Belgrade Love Actually, Momentum, Berlin
AUFTRAG LANDSCHAFT, Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, Germany
Oceans, Musée de la Chasse et la Nature, Paris, France
2015 Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, Musée National D’Histoire Naturelle, Paris
ASO (Art Speaks Out), ArtCop21, iconoTV Till It’s Gone, Istanbull Modern, Turkey
Climarte Festival, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
The Significant Other, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Art15, Olympia, London, UK Mind Shadows, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
MOMENTUM Collection, Loop, Barcelona
Four/Seven/Eleven, Dominik Mersh Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2014 What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me, FAS Contemporary, London
The Skullbone Experiment: A Paradigm of Art and Nature, Queen Victoria Museum, UNSW University Galleries Dominik Mersch Gallery @ Galerie Patrick Ebensperger
2013 SCANZ: 3rd Nature , New Plymouth, New Zealand
Australia: Contemporary Voices, FAS Contemporary, London Intra-action, MOP Gallery, Sydney, NSW
Collective Identity(ies): This is That Time, Lake Macquarie Gallery, Lake Macquarie, NSW Natural Selection, FAS Contemporary, London
Wonderworks, Cat Street Art Gallery, Hong Kong 1/2 Scene, Australia China
Art Foundation, Melbourne, VIC
2012 Negotiating This World, NGV, Melbourne
Life in Your Hands: Art from Solastalgia, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Booragul, NSW
Drawing Out, University of Arts, London, UK
Resistance, Fine Art Society, London, UK 2011 Found/Lost, China
Arts Projects, Osage Gallery, Beijing, China Hong Kong International Art Fair, Artist Project (Resuscitation: Garden for an Ailing Planet), Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
The Pulse, Herman Teirlinckhuis, Gemeentelijk Museum en Galerie Beersel, Beersel, Belgium Naturstrücke, Haus Hasenbergsteige, Stüttgart, Germany
Wattle Australian Contemporary Art: The Space, The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
Nature Interrupted: Contemporary Australian Sculpture, Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland, Queensland
2010 A Generosity of Spirit: Recent Australian Women’s Art from the QUT Art Collection, Samstag Museum, SA (QUT Art Museum touring exhibition)
Outside In, McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VIC
17th Biennale of Sydney: The Beauty of Distance – Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
In The Balance; Art for a Changing World, MCA, Sydney
2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, NGV Melbourne
Darwin’s Bastards, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney
The Museum Effect, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Booragul, NSW
A Natural World, Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Melbourne 2008
50X50, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
HEAT, RMIT University Gallery, Melbourne 2008
Handle With Care: 2008 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Parallel Universe, Artificial Land, Arnhem, the Netherlands
Abundant Australia: 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, Australian Pavilion, Italy
Recovering Lives, Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
2007 Systems of Nature, Lawrence Wilson Gallery, University of W.A.
2006 We are Australians Too, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney
A New Focus on Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
New Acquisitions 2006, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2005 After Nature, Lake Macquarie Regional Gallery, New South Wales
2004 Site: [unseen], Sherman Galleries at Depot Gallery, Sydney
Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, Japan, permanent installation (Elixir)
2002 Points of View: Works from the University of Technology Sydney Collection, UTS Gallery, Sydney
Eden and the Apple of Sodom, Adelaide Festival, University of South Australia Art Museum, Adelaide
2001 The Art of Transformation, Metis 2001, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Intersections of Art and Science, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney
2000 Kabbala, Jewish Museum of Melbourne, Melbourne
1999 Home and Away, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ
Pets, Preys and Predators, Mosman Art Gallery and Cultural Centre, Sydney (touring to NSW regional galleries) Cinderella’s Gems: Art and the Intellectual Missile (touring to Qld, NSW and Vic)
1998 The Infinite Space: Woman, Minimalism and the Sculptural Object, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne
Sixth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Melbourne
1997 Global Art, Carpediem Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand Australian Perspecta
1997: Between Art and Nature, S.H. Ervin Gallery, National Trust Centre, Sydney Innenseite, in conjunction with Documenta X, Kassel, Germany
1996 Spirit and Place, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Systems End, OXY Gallery, Osaka, Japan; Hakone Open Air Museum, Hakone, Japan; Dong Ah Gallery, Seoul, Korea Shelfworks, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
1994 Going Public, Annandale Galleries, Sydney 100 Years, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney
ARCO Art Fair, Madrid, Spain, with Annandale Galleries, Sydney
From the Observatory, Wollongong Regional Gallery, NSW, touring to Gold Coast and New South Wales regional galleries
1993 Inaugural Dobell Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Works from the Allen, Allen & Hemsley Collection, Westpac Arts Centre, Melbourne
Poetics of Immanence, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, touring South Australian regional galleries
1992–93 The Boundary Rider, 9th Biennale of Sydney, Bond Stores, Sydney
1992 In Black and White, Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney
Synthesis, Art + Architecture Collaboration, Bond Stores, Sydney Margaret Stewart Endowment, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Above the Lake, Beneath the Sky, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla, VIC
1991 Frames of Reference: Aspects of Feminism in Art, The Wharf, Sydney
Steam, Artists’ Projects for Australian Perspecta
1991, The Coach House, The Rocks, Sydney
Primitive concepts: The four elements, Lake Macquarie Regional Gallery, NSW, touring to Maitland and Mussellbrook regional galleries, NSW
1990 Tokyo Connection, Heineken Village Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Abstraction, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Osmosis, Garry Anderson Gallery, Sydney
1989 Eastern States/Western States, Beach Gallery, Perth
1988 200 Years of Australian Drawing, Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
Intimate Drawing, Coventry Gallery, Sydney The Great Australian Exhibition, Bicentennial Travelling Exhibition, NSW
1987 Tutti Frutti, Milan Art Fair, Italy
The Art of Collage, Holdsworth Contemporary Gallery, Sydney
Nature and Technology, Sanctuary Cove, QLD
Abstract, King Street Gallery Newtown, Sydney
1986 Vessels of Meaning, Scholarie Arts Council Gallery, New York, US
Australijana – Contemporary Australian Painting, National Gallery of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
1985 A Contemporary Australian Art, Warwick Arts Trust, London, UK
Isolaustralia, Fondazine Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, Italy
Australian Perspecta 1985, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1984 Surface and Image, Crafts Council Gallery, Sydney; Penrith Regional Gallery & the Lewers Bequest, Emu Plains, NSW
1983 A.U.S.T.R.A.L.I.A., ZONA, Florence, Italy
1982 ZONA Australia, Florence, Italy
1981 Students Gallery (now Mori Gallery), Sydney
SELECTED AWARDS
2025 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize
2022 Bowness Prize Finalist, Melbourne
2013 John Glover Art Prize, Tasmania
2010 Alumni Award for the Arts, University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts, Sydney
2008 Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts, Sydney
2006 Churchill Fellowship 2000 McGeorge Fellowship, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
1999 National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), Award for Art in the Built Environment, Australia, for 49 Veils 1996–98 Australia Council Fellowship
1997 Rockefeller Foundation (residency), Bellagio, Italy
1996 Alice Prize, Alice Springs, NT
1995 Royal Australian Institute of Architects ‘Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design’ for First Government House Place, Sydney, in collaboration with Fiona Foley and Denton Corker Marshall Architects
1994 Kedumba Drawing Award, Wentworth Falls, NSW
Lake Macquarie Art Prize, NSW Pring Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1986 Woollahra–Waverley Art Prize, Sydney
1982 Gold Coast City Art Purchase Award, QLD
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
2024 Aesop x Janet Laurence - The Fragrance Laboratory
022 Cliff, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
The Breath in Glass, Foveaux Street, Sydney with Candelapas Associates Architects
Pollination, Poly BUilding, Sydney, with UAP
2017 The Space Between: A garden for Phoenix, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The Australia Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, Australia
2016 A Medicinal Maze, Novartis Campus: Sculpture and Medicinal Garden, Sydney, NSW
H2O Water Bar, Paddington Water Reservoir, City of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Habitat, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW
2015 GASP: Parliament, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
2014 The Trees Line Track, Bundanon, NSW
2012 The Healing Wild, LaTrobe University, Health Sciences Building, Bendigo, VIC
2011 Tarkine (For a World in Need of Wilderness), Macquarie Bank, London, UK
2010 In Your Verdant View, The Hyde, Sydney Ghost, Lake Macquarie Gallery, NSW
2008 The Sound of Green, Department of Forestry, Canberra
2007 The Memory of Lived Spaces, Changi T3 Airport Terminal, Singapore
2006 Waterveil, CH2 Building for Melbourne City Council, Melbourne
2004 Verdant Veil, Changi Airport, Singapore
2003 The Breath We Share, Sidney Myer Commemorative Sculpture, Bendigo Art Gallery, VIC
Australian War Memorial, Hyde Park, London, UK, collaboration with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects Elixir, permanent installation for Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan
2002 Translucidus, Qantas Lounge, Sydney International Airport, Sydney
2001 Ciphers: Stations of the Cross, Australian Catholic University Chapel, Melbourne, collaboration with Julie Rrap
2000 Stilled Lives, collection showcases, permanent display, Melbourne Museum In the Shadow, Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, Sydney
1999 Picture the Dark Face of the River, Department of Environment, Canberra Veil of Trees, Sydney Sculpture Walk, Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney, collaboration with Jisuk Han
1998 49 Veils, windows for the Central Synagogue, Bondi, Sydney, collaboration with Jisuk Han
1995 Chronicle I–IV, Herald and Weekly Times Building, Southbank, Melbourne
Edge of the Trees, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, sculptural installation, collaboration with Fiona Foley
1993 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, collaboration with Tonkin Zulaikha Architects
COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Artbank, Australia
Australian War Memorial, Canberra
Auckland City Art Gallery
Chartwell Collection, Auckland, NZ
Commonwealth Law Court, Brisbane
Griffith University Collection, Brisbane
Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Booragul, NSW
Macquarie Bank Collection, Melbourne
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Museum Kunstwerk, Eberdingen, Germany
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW
Moree Plains Gallery, NSW
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
New Parliament House Collection, Canberra
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
Seibu Collection, Tokyo, Japan
Supreme Court of Queensland, Brisbane
University of New England, Northern Rivers, NSW
University of New South Wales, Sydney
University of Newcastle, NSW
University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba Campus, Qld
University of Technology, Sydney
University of Western Australia, Perth
World Bank Collection, Washington, US
Private and corporate collections worldwide