Inspired in part by Stevie Wonder’s album, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979), this exhibition presented plant life in its many guises. Each artist speculated about the sinister side of plants in different ways. The exhibition was comprised of  botanical illustrations of wild triffid-like weeds as well as imagery that assigned personalities to the foliage populating the Fremantle Art Centre’s galleries. Whether the plants presented as nicotined survivors of exhausted suburbia or bursting from the masonry, they all reflected the darker side of the Centre’s building which housed Western Australia’s first purpose-built lunatic asylum. We may only imagine the strange histories which Fremantle Arts Centre’s gardens have bared witness.

Artists:

Amanda Ahmed, Marina Albert, Nolda Beynon, Sue Boxhall, Helen Burrows, Deb Churnside, Eileen Curwell, Rosemary Donnelly, Alwynne Fairweather, Alison Gianangeli, Jan Gilfillan, Lyn Gras, Mary Gregory, Pam Habersberger, Mary Harper, Angela Harrison, Edyta Hoxley, Judith Jarman, Valda Jenkins, Esma Lawley, Peter Lewis, Joan Mason, Pam McDiarmid, Fiona McKinnon, Sue McLean, Mali Moir, Margaret Muffet, Kate Nolen, John Pastoriza-Pinol, Sandra Sanger, Noeline Sherwin, Barbara Student, Meg Webster, Karen White and Helene Wild