Join Metamorphosis artists Dr Elizabeth Edmonds (who will travel from the Great Southern region), Sarah Elson and Holly Story in conversation with FORM's Senior Curator Andrew Nicholls. Each will share an insight into their work and the ways in which the natural world informs their creative practice.

Banner Image: Elizabeth Edmonds, Transition, 2024. Ink and cold wax on rice paper, wood dowling 170 x 200 x 100 cm.

About Elizabeth Edmonds

Born: Whitley Bay, UK, 1967

Lives and works: Walpole, Australia

Dr Elizabeth Edmonds is an artist and palaeoecologist who lives on a family farm surrounded by the Walpole Wilderness. Edmonds’ art reflects her understanding of the changing physical environment, working primarily with ink and watercolour, both outdoors and in her studio. Her finely-rendered drawings reflect both her love of the natural world, and her highly-focused scientific eye. One of the State’s leading regionally based artists, Edmonds has participated in numerous exhibitions including a solo show at the Western Australian Museum of the Great Southern, as a three times finalist in Bunbury Regional Art Gallery’s South West Art Now (and its 2023 Western Australian tour), and in group shows at Collie Art Gallery, John Curtin Gallery and through The Creative Grid. She was a recipient of the Eucalypt Australia Dahl Fellowship 2023 with her The Tale of Two Trees project, which was a State Winner in the 2023 Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Communities Awards. She frequently curates exhibitions for artists visiting the Southwest region, teaches workshops, and is represented in collections in Australia and overseas.

About Sarah Elson

Born: Barossa Valley, Australia, 197

Lives and works: Near Fremantle, Australia

Sarah Elson has pursued an interest in traditional metalsmithing and its use in contemporary visual arts practice for over 30 years. Her work examines the nature of preciousness and the preciousness of nature, frequently incorporating organic forms cast from recycled precious metal, resulting in hybridised objects that seem to meld plant and animal biology. By continually casting and re-casting metal, creating articulated forms from solid components, and mixing organic and cast objects, her practice renders a discipline that is traditionally thought of as static and permanent into something fluid and elastic. Her works for Metamorphosis are all potentially wearable but exist as independent objects with a powerful presence in their own right.

Elson graduated from Curtin University’s former Jewellery and 3D Design course in 1991 where she went on to teach for 24 years. In 2001 she was the recipient of a Samstag Scholarship and holds an MFA from the Chelsea School of Art and Design, London. Elson has exhibited locally and internationally including the solo exhibitions Anigozanthos (eudaimonia hybrid) at Galerie Düsseldorf in 2007, phloem poetica at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in 2010 and Fasciation – expectations of growth, Art Collective WA in 2020. She recently returned from representing Australia in the II International Festival of Gold Embroidery and Jewelry, Zar Festival, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Her work is held in collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, and Janet Holmes à Court. She is a member of Art Collective WA.

About Holly Story

Born: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 1953

Lives and works: Fremantle and Walpole, Australia

Working across multiple disciplines, Holly Story’s work is concerned with human perception, lived experience, and the interdependence of the human and natural worlds. At the heart of her practice is a 30-year relationship with a research site at Deep River, on Western Australia’s south coast, a place she continually returns to as a source of creative inspiration.

Story was born in Zimbabwe of English heritage, but grew up in various countries, including Thailand and Lebanon. She immigrated to Western Australia in 1970, and in 1987 as a mature age student enrolled at Curtin University, obtaining a BA and Post Graduate Diploma in Visual Art in 1991, working as an artist, arts administrator and occasional arts writer since that time. Her work is represented in collections including Artbank, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the City of Perth, Janet Holmes à Court, the Museum of Arts Crafts, Itami Japan, Parliament House Canberra, the University of Western Australia and the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

About Metamorphosis: Artists in collaboration with plants.

FORM Building a State of Creativity presents Metamorphosis: Artists in collaboration with plants.

Inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, this exhibition honours the beguiling magic and transformative power of the natural world. The exhibiting artists have engaged the plant kingdom as co-creators in their work, asking us to reconsider humans' assumed dominance over the environment.

As in Ovid's epic poem, a series of alchemical transformations are apparent in each artist's process, with the exhibition works featuring photography, drawing, textiles, ceramics and jewellery technique.

This exhibition is the fifth in FORM’s Southern Exposure series, celebrating the talent, landscape, and stories of Western Australia's southern regions.

Metamorphosis invites viewers to explore the shifting boundaries we share with nature, but beyond artistic expression, it also serves as an important reminder of the need to protect the diverse and complex ecology of the land on which we are privileged to live.

Metamorphosis continues until Saturday, 13 July 2024.

Participating Artists
David Charles Collins | Elizabeth Edmonds | Sarah Elson | Holly Story | Beverly Thomson