Janet Laurence:
After Nature:
Museum of Contemporary
Art Australia

One of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, Janet Laurence is the subject of the first major survey in 30 years of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). Janet Laurence: After Nature features key works and themes from the artist’s practice, spanning sculpture, installation, photography and video. Laurence’s practice has long explored the interconnection of all living things – animal, plant, mineral – through a multidisciplinary approach. She has employed diverse materials to explore the natural world in all its beauty and complexity and to highlight the environmental challenges it faces today. The exhibition reflects on the key themes in Laurence’s work: the fragility of the natural world, its plight and potential restoration. Curated by MCA’s Chief Curator, Rachel Kent, the exhibition includes a number of seminal works from the artist’s career, ranging from her alchemical works of the early 1990s that use metal plates, minerals, organic substances and lightboxes, through to her installations of the 2000s and beyond, which incorporate plant and animal specimens within transparent vitrines and ‘wunderkammer’ environments. Central to the exhibition is a major new commission for the MCA, entitled Theatre of Trees, which brings together the last decade of Laurence’s research into plants, their medicinal and healing powers, and trees. The exhibition runs until June 10, 2019.