Studio Visit with Colleen Southwell

Colleen Southwell’s first solo exhibition Into the Wilder opens on Tuesday November 12th with the official launch to be held on Thursday November 14th at 6pm. Pre-sales launch online on Monday November 11th at 8pm.

Colleen Southwell was a very exciting discovery for us here at The Corner Store Gallery. In 2018 Colleen tentatively applied for an exhibition with friend and fellow artist Peter Worsley. I couldn’t quite believe my luck, we get lots of great applications but every now and then they really stand out! After being offered the F.O.O.D. Week exhibition slot, the biggest event of the year in Orange, Colleen said to me “Are you sure?” In my experience, the most talented artists are the ones least sure of their abilities…..

After selling out before opening night for Unfurl in 2018, Colleen’s career as an artist has grown from strength to strength. We are completely delighted to be exhibiting her stunning work here at The Corner Store Gallery once more for her first solo exhibition Into the Wilder opening November 12th.

I visited Colleen at her AMAZING home studio just outside of Orange. Colleen’s also a garden designer, and quite a good one at that… Her studio is located in a gorgeous corrugated iron shed in the back garden that she shares with her husband. Dried flowers, grasses, berries and seed pods are scattered throughout the room providing inspiration and a beautiful neutral colour palette. Colleen tells me she works in monotone to draw your eye to the pattern, texture and structure of the plants she interprets.

Can you tell us a little about your background? How did you come to be designing gardens and making art?

A creative path was always my intention, though when I left school, I studied business and agriculture at uni, crazy really - accounting is not my thing! I went on to work for 10 years in regional economic development and though there were community aspects of it that I enjoyed, it wasn't the creative future I had envisaged.

After having my two gorgeous boys I retrained in horticulture - I have had a lifelong love for the garden, passed down by my Mum. I loved the creative side of design, hand drawing and watercolour rendering plans, and particularly working with plants. I worked for a time with a local design business, then out on my own.

Starting The Garden Curator was really a turning point, driven by a growing awareness in the disconnect that many people have from nature, a personal need to refocus, and an idea that I wanted to encourage a genuine appreciation for the natural world and our place within it. I also felt that we need to move back to living with nature day to day in a way that is immersive, productive and enriching. Manufactured "off the shelf" landscapes may look glossy, but they can lack heart if they don't evolve and reflect the story of the story of those within. The more we engage with nature, the more we are in awe of it, and the more we value it. It begins at home!

My artwork has evolved from these ideas too - intended to encourage pause, observation and appreciation for the tiny details of the life around us.

How long have you been creating your amazing, intricate paper artworks? When did this style evolve and how?

I have been making for as long as I can remember - painting in oils and watercolour, stitching, drawing - I know I used to drive Mum mad, insisting that we keep all kinds of bits and pieces to stash away in the "make-it box" to be crafted into something new. I grew up in an extended family of artists, makers and gardeners - it has always been central to who we are and I can’t imagine it any other way.

My current work is only quite recent, growing from my love for detail and life in the garden. During my horticulture study I became fascinated with the process of collecting herbarium specimens, treasured remnants of plants intended for study and preservation. In a way my work is an evolution of this, intended to be studied, alluding to scientific specimens of plants and insects.

Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere! Nature is the master of design. The garden is a great inspiration, also rural life, walking through our paddocks, along roadsides. Reading too, I am a hoarder of books! A lot of my work is imagined and little is intended to copy, so I am most interested in patterns, forms, shapes, the way plants interact and layer together and the communities they form with insects. Often the “imperfect” is the most beautiful.

Can you give us a brief outline of your process?

My work is a form of paper sculpture – botanical and entomology pieces that are drawn in fine pigment pen, painted in watercolour, cut, embossed and shaped, then assembled. There are often hundreds of pieces in each work. I use very fine gauge jewellery wire, thread, and sometimes found pieces like antique watch parts or textiles. Each piece is pinned with entomology pins, bringing shadow into play. The transience of shadow is an important part of the work, I love how it reflects the fragility of the subject and changes with the light. It’s an incredibly time-consuming process with works taking days and weeks to complete, often with a pair of tweezers in both hands!

You have the most beautiful space to work. Can you describe your studio to our readers?

My studio is a corrugated iron cottage in our garden, on our property near Orange and about 10 steps from our house, the perfect commute. It overlooks a valley that I love, the light is constantly changing and it’s quiet and beautiful. My donkeys Olive and Pearl and our little mobs of sheep are close by in the paddock. I share the cottage with my husband – he runs his agricultural business from one side, my studio is on the other. There is a verandah on the front, usually occupied by our dogs and a constant stream of birds - one has built a nest in the potted plant beside my door. The studio floor is usually littered with snippets of paper and I can’t bring myself to throw away the many bunches of dried flowers and foliage that make their way inside from the garden or paddock. It’s very much a shared space, I love it and feel incredibly lucky.

Tell us about your first solo exhibition “Into the Wilder”.

“Into the Wilder” is a collection of layered and textural pieces, a little on the wild side. The works are intended to represent a walk-through nature and the complexity of life within each step. I love the garden most when it’s a bit unruly, when plants mingle in translucent seedy layers, spill over edges, left alone to settle into a lovely chaos. Rural roadsides fascinate me too, weedy perhaps, though the resilient communities of plants and insects that have found their own place can be quite beautiful.

Since beginning this path 18 months ago with “Unfurl”, my show with Peter Worsley, I have been blown away by how it has evolved. I am so grateful for the interest and encouragement from my home community, and thrilled to be back at The Corner Store Gallery for my first solo show.

What’s next for you?

After “Into the Wilder”, I will be working towards another solo exhibition a few months into 2020, a few group shows, and I have some amazing commissions in the planning. As my art practice has grown, I have had very little time to take on garden design work, though I have a couple of really special projects to begin. I love sharing garden stories and will keep doing so through Instagram, my new mailing list through my website and some exciting new avenues. We opened the garden and studio to a tour group for the first time this year, so we will see how that evolves too. Interesting times ahead, but I feel I am finally doing what was intended, and I love it.