Colleen’s natural art, from Mullion Ck to the Big Apple

World’s most well-travelled person would have to admit, it’s a long way from Mullion Creek to New York City!

 Yet local artist Colleen Southwell is spanning this vast geographical and cultural span with her unique natural artworks that combine botany, biology, and three-dimensional art.

Colleen has just completed a foyer installation for an exclusive Fifth Avenue, Five-Star hotel in Manhattan.

For Colleen though, her inspiration all came a million miles away from one of the world’s great cities in her work as a landscape garden designer from which her art has now taken precedence.

“I am a Mullion Creek girl, yes, and I have been full-time in my art-practice for about three-years, but I have a background in horticulture and landscape design.

“I also have an extensive garden myself, which feeds into the artwork and the artwork then feeds into the garden,” Colleen explained.

Her unique garden is an artistic creation and draws visitors to the small village north of Orange.

“It’s probably two- and-a -half acres of rambling county gardens; of perennials and ornamental grasses, so it’s quite a rambling country garden.

“There’s some formal hedging and character clip forms as well.”

It was only a matter of time then that this love of nature led into and inspired Colleen’s innate artistic talents.

“I’ve been dabbling since I was a child. I come from a family of makers and artisans, a family of creatives,” Colleen said.

Her unique, self-designed art involves creating realistic three-dimensional (but not lifelike) representations of insect and plant species out of paper.

“The best way to describe it is, ‘paper sculpture’ — what I do is, take botanical (plant) and etymological (insect) specimens.

“I then draw them in a very fine pigment pen, such things as petals, the leaves, and then I cut and emboss these pieces so they’re three-dimensional artworks,” Colleen explained.

The result is finely-crafted and highly-particularised individual items revealing and enhancing the wonderful delicacy and variety of our natural world.

The works are then wired together with the finished works displayed on a fine-paper background as if for a scientific display.

“It’s very finely-detailed and very, very delicate, and then I pin these so they’re ‘off’ the backing board.”

Colleen’s niche artistic creations have become increasingly-popular and recently came to the attention of an international audience, leading to the hotel project.

“I exhibit quite a lot, and I was recently contacted by an art consultant in Paris who asked me about doing this big commission which is going into the hotel lobby on Fifth Avenue of New York,” Colleen explained.

The completed project — portraying native plants of the region — is awaiting shipment by one of the specialised art transport firms used by galleries, owners, and exhibitors to protect their priceless works while on road, sea, and air.

“It took about three months to complete. It’s all botanical specimens layered over each other; it’s framed and behind Perspex 10cm deep and still pinned; all depicting plants indigenous to the north-east of the United States.

“It will be shipped within the next couple of weeks,” Colleen said excitedly.

Only dampener at this stage is that, due to current bans on international travel, she won’t be able to supervise the installation, often the last stage of the creative process for a visual artist.

“unfortunately, at this point, I won’t be in person able to go and see it in situ (on site).

“I think it is the most exciting thing I’ve done yet. The hotel is quite extraordinary, a five-star international hotel — having the international agency is quite fantastic,” Colleen enthused.

Since first diving into the deep-end of her creative talents, Colleen has seen her art steadily rise over the past few years.

“My first exhibition was at the Corner Store Gallery (in Orange) which was a sell-out; and I’ve been full-time ever since with my next exhibition there from November 17.”

Married with two teenage boys, Colleen looks back at how a passion for gardening led her to become a sought-after artist half-way round the world.

“I did a horticulture course at TAFE when my boys were babies and I worked 10 years as a garden designer.

“I actually have a television crew coming-out in a few weeks to do a story and I also hold organised garden tours that come around,” she said of a life that seems to be coming-up roses.

What, one wonders, then, are her favourite plants, flowers, or insects? “It changes with the seasons. Each season, I love something new to inspire me,” Colleen concluded.