Hadyn Wilson -Stories from the Archive: A Palaebotanical Narrative

5th February 2010 - 5th April 2010

Officially opened by Tim Entwhistle, Director, Botanic Gardens Trust, Sydney
on Saturday 6 February 2010. 

Wollombi artist Hadyn Wilson's latest exhibition Stories from the Archive: A Palaeobotanical explores his ongoing interest in the art historical past, and his deepening narrative engagement with the natural world.

As artist, historian, scientist, environmentalist and curious onlooker Wilson seeks to tease out multiple layers of understanding and engagement with nature, particularly the plant life of the planet. These investigations, in both image and text, have extended over several years and form the basis of his study towards the award of Ph.D. at the University of Newcastle.

The works shown here, many of which have previously been revealed in three discreet exhibitions at Brenda May Gallery in Sydney, reflect his changing interests and experiences, personal and artistic as well as academic influences and research. Our advantage here is to see them together for the first time, documenting the artist's personal and artistic journey.

Broadly and collectively this body of work explores relationships between past and present,the real and surreal, history and myth. From his base at Wollombi, influences as diverse as17th Century Dutch flower painting, the landscapes of the Australian Impressionists, detailed notebooks of 19th century naturalists and explorers such as Banks and Darwin and botanical art all find their way into his work. The results can often be surreal - the familiar juxtaposed with the strange, figures at ease in alien landscapes, humans reduced to the scale of insects, plants so large they block the sky - all executed in passages of very fine painting. The phrase ‘True Fictions' has been used in relation Hadyn's work and it is a fitting description, for in most of these works Hadyn takes the fact of the fossil or botanical archive and ‘imagines' them into existence, creating places none of us have ever been to before.

This is a not to be missed and a not to be repeated show. These paintings, drawings and mixed media pieces have been gathered from private and public collections across Australia to make this exhibition possible.

The Sunny South and Cynobacteria 2007

The Harvest of the Giant Horsetails of the Clubmoss Flora 2007	Lime-gatherers of the Cynobacteria Amoebae 2007
The Ceremony of Pentoxylon australica 2007	Harvesting of Leptopheum 2007
Gymnosperms 2009	Corystospemales 2009
The Fish of Talbragar Lake - Detail 2008	The Place Where You Live 2007