This exhibition reflects my continuing interest in the concept of collecting and natural history collections. The very process of collecting influences the nature of any collection and so the process of collecting is central to this exhibition.

For the past two decades I have regularly visited the same south coast NSW beach collecting objects deposited in the long, long tideline. Visits were spaced out across each season and as I came to know the wave patterns of this particular stretch of coast I took pleasure in anticipating where various objects would be deposited. Whole urchins in one spot, pipis along a certain stretch, scallop shells along another and so on. I’d been collecting and painting seaweed floats for some time and was now enjoying expanding my focus to include any object which caught my interest and inspired me.

My past bodies of work have also been concerned with collecting and my approach this time included setting some rules; the primary rule being that living objects would not be collected. Others were being selective and sparing of what I removed from the shores and the return of unused specimens from previous trips. I did not limit myself to typical specimens – I particularly enjoyed painting fragments of shells, bones and plants in varying states. Every object was painted from life, no secondary sources were used. Variations of the one species were often painted as my awareness of the impact of environmental factors to the specimen’s development grew. I also fancied the concept of collections within the collection, focusing on specific species within a larger work.

With my smallest paintings I have again explored the notion of Collector’s Cabinets, playing with juxtaposition of shapes, colours and subjects. The larger paintings grew from wanting to depict objects too large for the cabinet format but still in need of intimate scale. So this series of painting has been designed to hang together scattered on the wall in a manner echoing the cabinets – but with greater breathing space.

The stamp works are also an extension of an earlier theme. I have continued to play with the notion of the layering of pattern, repetition and mixing media with these new pieces.

Sylvia Griffin