Wagga artist Emily Shannon shares how she creates her unique artwork from prickly pear found on travelling stock routes.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So this is my Silky Swainson pea. The paper is made from horse poo and I have made some ink using
00:09lake pigments which is basically a pretty complicated chemistry process to shift a botanical
00:15dye that's a liquid into insoluble pigment crystals. So I've made that from weeds. So
00:24here you've got some quickly prepared picture which is actually going to be fading over the
00:28time of the exhibition which is intentional because that just leads into the idea that
00:35these species that I'm depicting here which are part of our box gum grassy woodland are
00:40endangered and are literally fading before our eyes. The other weed pigment I've used is
00:46privet berries which are abundant around the streets of Wagga. I did not need to look far
00:50and they have been used in the dyeing industry for a very long time but I was able to apply
00:55some of that scientifically and move it into pigments. So it's completely handmade and it's
01:01part of my Cultivate exhibition here at the Station Gallery this side of November. I hope you can come.