ALEXANDRA MILLS
Artist
Banksia: drawings in many materials
This exhibition celebrated the banksias found in the North Sydney area during a residency there. It was shown at the museum studio of May Gibbs and became a contemporary response to the frightening ‘big, bad banksia men’ in her Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. It’s easy to see human features in banksia pods and like humans they are all different. Gnarly and hairy or smooth and regular, reddish, greenish or black they have eyes and mouths that suggest faces. To express these features, the drawings are made using many materials: wire, wood, textiles capture several stages of the plant’s life at once by combining and layering materials in expanded to invite human viewers to share the experience with something closer to their own size.