This film was made between lockdowns in 2021, a chance to document two shows, ‘Do you still love me?(asked the earth)’ at Silverleaf Artbox and ‘Rosie Weiss:Collected Works’ at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. Both shows had been interrupted by Covid, but it was also because of Covid that the filmmaker, John Doggett-Williams was in Australia rather than working overseas, so I feel blessed to have been able to work with my old friend, thankyou John. |
Rosie Weiss is a Melbourne / Mornington Peninsula based artist & educator. In 1992 she won the Moet & Chandon Australian art Fellowship with a painting titled 'lung' a reaction to the chemical fire on Coode Island the same year. In 1996 she completed her Master of Arts at RMIT with 'Intimate Patterns' a body of work that examined our relationship with nature. She has exhibited in Australia, Asia & France over the past thirty years, and her work can be found in collections across Australia including
The National Gallery of Victoria, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Artbank & The National Gallery of Australia.
Weiss makes work about her/our relationship to the natural world. She finds plant fragments on the edges of human activity, paths, bush tracks, school play grounds, city streets, logging tracks, farms, her garden and by the sea. These fragments have often been worn down by wear and tear, including fire, to their essential structures, they then form the basis of her practice as she attempts to give them a voice.
Appearing in works from the early 80’s to the present most of the plant fragments have lived on to appear in the Installation at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, ‘On the edge’ 2019. This collection of over 400 land and sea plants collected over 40 years and referenced in the retrospective shown alongside, prints, paintings and works in paper, is part of the show ‘In the valley’ a group climate change show curated by Danny Lacy and included in the Climarte Festival.
“Weiss’ work has a spiritual entanglement with the landscape, her drawings and paintings of natural objects often anthropomorphise into body parts, exploring the symbiosis between the body and nature.” Danny Lacy 2019
In the winter of 2015 Weiss spent time at the Police Point Residency, Point Nepean. It was here she witnessed ‘An extreme erosion event ‘ (Parks Victoria beach closure signage). The trees were falling into the sea faster than she could draw or photograph them. These fragments become the beginning of the series ‘The trees are falling into the sea and other stories ‘ 2015-17, which eventually involved collecting fragments from the whole of Port Phillip Bay dislodged by channel deepening & sea level rises.
These works appeared to cross over to all life forms be they human, animal or plant. In 2018 she began making a series of larger works inspired by fragments from further afield, still using ink and watercolour these recent drawings have been described by the artist Karina Armstrong “You know how they say trees can communicate amongst themselves, these works with their contained complex visual language seem like the closest thing to eavesdropping. Just beautiful.”
Appearing in works from the early 80’s to the present most of the plant fragments have lived on to appear in the Installation at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, ‘On the edge’ 2019. This collection of over 400 land and sea plants collected over 40 years and referenced in the retrospective shown alongside, prints, paintings and works in paper, is part of the show ‘In the valley’ a group climate change show curated by Danny Lacy and included in the Climarte Festival.
“Weiss’ work has a spiritual entanglement with the landscape, her drawings and paintings of natural objects often anthropomorphise into body parts, exploring the symbiosis between the body and nature.” Danny Lacy 2019
In the winter of 2015 Weiss spent time at the Police Point Residency, Point Nepean. It was here she witnessed ‘An extreme erosion event ‘ (Parks Victoria beach closure signage). The trees were falling into the sea faster than she could draw or photograph them. These fragments become the beginning of the series ‘The trees are falling into the sea and other stories ‘ 2015-17, which eventually involved collecting fragments from the whole of Port Phillip Bay dislodged by channel deepening & sea level rises.
These works appeared to cross over to all life forms be they human, animal or plant. In 2018 she began making a series of larger works inspired by fragments from further afield, still using ink and watercolour these recent drawings have been described by the artist Karina Armstrong “You know how they say trees can communicate amongst themselves, these works with their contained complex visual language seem like the closest thing to eavesdropping. Just beautiful.”