Janet Laurence

Well-known for her installations and major public art commissions that engage with architectural and biological forms, acclaimed Australian artist Janet Laurence is fascinated by the interplay of plant species, animals and people. In her work, represented in all major collections in Australia, Laurence constructs atmospheric spaces that allow for deep reflection on questions of climate change, ecology and extinction. Here, Prudence Gibson offers a new understanding of Laurence's BioArt and what her work says about humanity's relationship to the world.

About the Author

Dr. Prudence Gibson is an academic and an art and fiction writer. Her BioArt book Janet Laurence: The Pharmacy of Plants, UNSWPress, will be launched in November 2015. Her research interests include schizo-fiction, Object Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism. Her PhD investigated speculative art writing and she organised Aesthetics After Finitude, a conference and exhibition in 2015, soon to be a published anthology with re.press, Melbourne. She has published fiction in Antipodes, Eureka Street, Etchings Journal and Blood.

She is author of the art book The Rapture of Death and has had over 200 art essays/articles published in Heat, The Australian, Vogue, Australian Art Collector and Art Monthly etc. Her curated exhibitions are The Carpentry of Speculative Things, Alaska Projects 2013 and The Pharmacy of Love and Hate MCA Artbar 2013. An exhibition and book, Plant Sentience and Art, are being developed for 2016.