alchemical
Cliff
Curtin University, Perth, 2022
CLIFF is an installation of stones that are in fact the earth itself.
Western Australia is the great zone of geology, a vast range of rocks minerals and gemstones and crystals that form the earth through processes and formations throughout eons of time. CLIFF brings you the earth not as a representation but as presentation of earth itself, in the form of stones each with its geological story - of time, weather, movement and formation.
If the building is a wunderkammer / a cabinet of curiosity, these stones can be seen as exhibits, presentations within a natural history museum. Creating a mapping of landscape, offering a non-didactic educative experience, a surprising and fresh way to see these rocks removed from their normal systems of storage or exhibition mode. Every rock has been donated from historic rock-hunter collections, brought from a private space into a public space for us all to enjoy.
Western Australia geological rocks, brushed stainless steel
Collection Curtin University.
Created in collaboration with Event Engineering, Apparatus, and John Wardle Architects
Matter of the masters
Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2017
Janet Laurence’s The matter of the masters is inspired by conservation research and analysis undertaken on Dutch old master paintings in the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, especially works by Rembrandt. The field of paintings conservation, particularly the study of artist’s materials and their origins, is of interest to Laurence who explores similar intersections of art, science and nature in her multi-disciplinary practice.
Rembrandt’s paintings have been the focus of forensic examination partly because very few details of his studio practice were recorded during his lifetime. The mystery and intrigue surrounding his materials and working methods was so great that he was likened to a sorcerer and an alchemist by his admirers. Here, Laurence poetically illuminates an element of chemistry and alchemy in Rembrandt’s paintings by highlighting the incredible processes of transmutation that animal and plant matter have undergone to become a work of art.
Mixed media installation
Photographs by Christopher Snee
SOlids by Weight Liquids by Measure
Queensland Art Gallery collection, Brisbane, 1993
Seven metals, oil, various substances, laboratory glass
The Measure of Light
view from Queensland Art Gallery, 1993
Lead, glass, salt, sulphur, mercury, x-ray, various substances, lily, fluorescent light
Photographs by Richard Stringer
Less Stable Elements
Installation view, The University Gallery, University of Newcastle, 1996
Glass, wood, aluminium, mulch, oxides, seeds, oil
Photographs by Terrance Hollows
Memory Matter
Lake Macquarie Museum of Art and Culture collection, 1994
Ten panels of steel, black steel, photograph, aluminium, zinc, wood, veneer, oil, wax, and burnt wood
sodium SPill
From the Periodic Table series, 1997
Aluminium, various pigments, oil glaze
Second Exposure
From the Periodic Table series, 9th Biennale of Sydney, 1993
Lead, glass, salt, sulphur, mercury, x-ray, various substances, lily, fluorescent light
Forensic
Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, 1991
Wood, photographs, straw, laboratory glass, lead, ash, fluorescent lights, x-rays, perspex
Pacific Xanthosis
250 x 180, 1989
four panels, shellac, ink, collage, and cedar wood
Blindspot
National Gallery of Victoria collection, 1989
Charcoal, gouache, pastel, metallic paint, and oil stick