JANET LAURENCE was recently profiled on Gardening Australia’s "My Garden Path". In this beautiful segment, Janet invites us into her studio and garden—spaces where art and ecology entwine. Known for her immersive installations that explore the fragility of ecosystems and our connection to the natural world, Janet speaks about her practice with poetic clarity.
Watch the full story here >
JANET LAURENCE exhibition 'Burnt Sea' opens in Berlin
Janet Laurence's new evocative installation, The Burnt Sea is now on view at the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung in Berlin. This site-specific work transforms Alfred Ehrhardt’s 1930s–40s coral photographs into delicate silk veils that drift like underwater relics—fragmented, translucent, and fading.
Air currents and light animate these floating fabrics, echoing the fragility of our oceans and the devastating impact of coral bleaching.
Laurence’s poetic layering of embroidery and ash-toned imagery creates a space of mourning and reflection, while a “reef hospital” of bleached coral and coloured threads offers a glimmer of hope and restoration. This exhibition is a powerful call to action in the face of ecological crisis.
For more details, visit: aestiftung.de
JANET LAURENCE wins Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize 2025
ARC ONE Gallery is thrilled to announce that Janet Laurence is this year’s winner of the 2025 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize with her beautifully striking and poignant artwork Moss Water Ice Temperature Rising (2024). This award is one of the highest valued professional artists prizes in Australia. Janet is greatly honoured to have received this award last night. As one of this country’s key creative minds with a practice that is underpinned by a deep love and concern for the overwhelming importance of the natural world, we congratulate her.
JANET LAURENCE Features in OpenField Festival
Janet Laurence's new stunning immersive installation The Court Requiem for Nature just opened to the public as part of the arts festival OpenField at Berry Courthouse in the regional town, Berry.
Janet was also part of an artists' panel discussion 'RE:Place' moderated by Bundanon's CEO Rachel Kent with fellow artists Joan Ross, June Golland, and Kenneth Lambert.
OpenField is from 13 - 15 June 2025.
Image: Installation view of Janet Laurence, The Court Requiem for Nature, The Court Requiem for Nature, New South Wales.
Review of ARC ONE Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair
We’re grateful to Clever Planet (@clever.planet) for their generous words on ARC ONE’s presence at this year’s Melbourne Art Fair (@melbourneartfair).
Their article, Traversing Terrains, highlights the quiet power of our presentation — where the practices of Janet Laurence, Marina Rolfe, and John Young intersected around material sensitivity, memory, and ecological care.
Writer Natalie Thomas described the ARC ONE booth as “contemplative and gentle,” a space that invited visitors to slow down and consider the shifting terrain of contemporary experience. We’re proud to have contributed this moment of stillness within the Fair’s vibrant momentum.
JANET LAURENCE - Open Field Arts Festival
Here is a behind the scenes glance at the installation JANET LAURENCE is creating for the Open Field Arts Festival in Berry this June.
ARC ONE Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair 2025
For the first time in a decade, ARC ONE Gallery is returning to the Melbourne Art Fair. To celebrate, we are bringing a presentation of thrilling new works by Janet Laurence, Marina Rolfe and John Young.
Collectors have consistently sought out these artists for the mastery they bring to their medium. Rolfe, Young and Laurence each have a unique vision of landscape abstraction that will be on display this week at MAF.
For more information, click here.
JANET LAURENCE - Exhibition Progress Sneak Peek
SNEAK PEEK
JANET LAURENCE is working towards an upcoming exhibition in Berlin at the Alfred Erhardt Foundation. Using Erhardts incredible images of corals she has been exploring how magnification reveals their extraordinary patterns.
JANET LAURENCE Features in the Lyrebird Festival
LYREBIRD FESTIVAL
This weekend Janet Laurence has been a part of the Lyrebird Festival in Megalong Valley, NSW. In a rustic barn (last slide), Laurence has presented three video works: The Other Side of Nature (2014), Requiem (2021); and Vanishing (2009).
The Lyrebird Festival returns in 2024, celebrating the spectacular Megalong Valley with music, art, food and wine, talks and nature walks. The festival continues until Sunday, 17 November.
New publication featuring MARTI, ZAHALKA, LAURENCE, YOUNG
Celebrating the launch of Mordant Collection Highlights, a publication devoted to the collection of Simon and Catriona Mordant.
"We never set out to build a collection. What has driven us is a passion to be surrounded by creative people, whether in the visual or performing arts. We have only purchased a work when it evoked a reaction in us ... We have never bought a work for a particular wall or because someone told us the artist was important. We have loved this journey together."—Simon and Catriona Mordant
Featured in the highlights are these pieces by Dani Marti, Anne Zahalka, Janet Laurence and John Young.
JANET LAURENCE x AESOP
JANET LAURENCE x AESOP
If you are in Sydney, pop down to Aesop's flagship store in The Strand for a special installation of The Fragrance Laboratory, a collaboration inspired by a number of Janet Laurence’s key works that feature labware and plant materials, including the acclaimed Elixir Lab, the H20: Water Bar and the monumental 2017 mixed-media work Matter of the Masters at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Aesop stores in Sydney and Melbourne have been cleared of all products, excluding fragrance, and transformed into immersive sensorial environments in a collaboration with Janet Laurence. The partnership is born of shared interests in art, science, memory and imagination, and a common dedication to creating a more sustainable future.
It has been lovely to work with Aesop and Luke Mortimer for this inspired collaboration. More to come in Melbourne next week, when The Fragrance Laboratory is launched in Flinders Lane!
'We share a philosophy that uses aesthetics to create an experiential space that can express wonder and a relationship between nature and science,’ said Laurence. ‘The focus of my work is the beauty and complexity of the natural world and the fragility of our environment. The collaboration with Aesop is a further exploration of these ideas.’
JANET LAURENCE artist residency talk at State Buildings in Perth
This week Janet Laurence will travel to Perth to take up an artist's residency in the iconic State Buildings in Perth.
During August, audiences will be invited to visit Laurence's studio and observe her process, from her exploration of initial concepts and materials, to how these emerge within her practice.
On 9 August, visitors can do just that, with a private viewing of Laurence's latest work where the artist will discuss her artistic journey, creative process, and the environmental themes that influence her work. This will be followed by an afternoon tea of finely curated teas and luxurious treats.
See @statebuildings website for bookings.
JANET LAURENCE finalist the 2024 William & Winifred Bowness Photography Prize
Congratulations Janet Laurence who has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 William & Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.
Janet is one of the 74 finalists that comprise this year's shortlist: one of the largest in the 19-year history of the prize. The judging panel considered close to 750 entries: Dr Peta Clancy, Brett Rogers OBE, and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea worked through the submissions to select a diverse representation of contemporary Australian photography in this year’s Bowness Photography Prize.
IMAGE: Janet Laurence, Moss water ice temperature rising, 2024, chromogenic print, oil paint, acrylic, 150.0 x 100.0 cm
MURRAY FREDERICKS, JANET LAURENCE & ANNE ZAHALKA Feature in the 2024 MAPh X Artist photography auction
MAPh X Artist photography auction
Book tickets now for your chance to bid on these three magnificent works by Murray Fredericks, Anne Zahalka and Janet Laurence.
MAPh has joined forces with artists to create a unique auction where we will share equally in the sale proceeds of their work, giving buyers the opportunity to have a direct impact on artists and their practice. MAPH is also offering absentee and telephone bidding.
MAPh X Artist photography auction
📅 Thursday 6 June 2024, 6pm for 7pm auction. Drinks and canapés on arrival
📍James Makin Gallery, 89 Islington St, Collingwood VIC 3066
Full catalogue including estimates and booking details via @maph_photography
IMAGES:
1. Murray FREDERICKS
BLAZE #28 2023
from the series BLAZE
pigment ink-jet print
120.0 x 150.0 cm
2. Anne ZAHALKA
You Are On Bondi Bidjigal Land! 2020
pigment ink-jet print on cotton rag
115.0 x 190.0 cm
3 - 5. Janet LAURENCE
In your verdant view 2020
Duraclear print on Shinkolite acrylic
4 panels, 30 x 28 cm each
Artist Talk with JANET LAURENCE & MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea
Last week’s online talk with artist Janet Laurence and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea is now available to watch online here.
Learn about Tears of dust, Laurence's exhibition for PHOTO 2024 held at MAPh, discuss key moments in the artist’s remarkable career and hear about the ideas that drive her work.
JANET LAURENCE at Curtin University
Watch this magnificent behind-the-scenes film documenting Janet Laurence’s permanent site-specific installation CLIFF, installed at The School of Design and the Built Environment Building, at Curtin University, Perth.
“Imagine you are climbing a cliff, as you ascend the viewing staircase. CLIFF brings you the earth, not as a representation but as presentation of Earth itself, in the form of rocks each with its own story - of time, weather, movement, and formation." - Janet Laurence
This project was commissioned by Curtin University and completed with support from Event Engineering and Apparatus. The recently completed The School of Design building was designed by John Wardle Architects.
JANET LAURENCE - Tears of Dust
NEW PUBLICATION
Artist Janet Laurence created this captivating volume that encapsulates the many strands of her creative process and advocacy for the natural world that inform her exhibition 'Tears of dust', curated by MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea.
Designed by Pidgeon Ward, this publication distills the essence of Laurence's practice into an artefact that marks not only this exhibition, but many years of inquiry, research and care. You can hear Laurence speak at the PHOTO 2024 Ideas Summit this Friday, where she'll be addressing 'Photography as activism' in 'The Alchemical Life: new ways of living on our fragile planet'.
'Tears of dust' is available in the MAPh shop via the link in our bio, where you can also find a link to purchase tickets for the Ideas Summit.
JANET LAURENCE x PHOTO 2024 Ideas Summit
JANET LAURENCE x PHOTO 2024 Ideas Summit
Janet Laurence is speaking in Melbourne at the PHOTO 2024 Ideas Summit. Her session is titled, 'Photography as Activism'.
Get tickets for this world first global forum, explore the future of photography.
Tickets are on sale now. Head to the offical PHOTO 2024 website for more details.
15 March
The Edge, Fed Square
Other speakers include:
Ryan McGinley (US)
Sunil Gupta (CA/UK)
Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis (Pitta Pitta)
Carmen Winant (US)
Boris Eldagsen (DE)
Sophia (SA)
Serwah Attafuah (AU, Ashanti/Akan)
Michael Najjar (DE)
Mark Andrejevic (AU)
Jo Duck (AU)
filip custic (ES/HR)
Kirsten Lyttle (Māori)
Janet Laurence (AU)
Isadora Romero (EC)
Daniel Jack Lyons (US)
Katrina Sluis (AU/UK)
Lauren Dunn (AU)
Dr Kirsten Garner Lyttle (Māori)
JANET LAURENCE solo exhibition 'Tears of Dust' opens at the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh)
Janet Laurence’s immersive, multisensory installation Tears of dust reflects upon the fragility and power of the natural environment. Her intensely seductive and yet haunting evocations of the natural environment create encounters with our changing planet.
In this world premiere show, these wunderkammers (cabinets of curiosity) provide windows into our fragile ecosystem—of breathing forests, extreme weather events and dying glaciers—and offer a sense of connection with, and mourning of, our vanishing life world.
When encountering these familiar and yet otherworldly environments, we become profoundly aware of the interconnection of all life forms and the alchemical wonder of plants' ability to regenerate.
Janet Laurence, EDEN 11, Dye sublimation Photographs printed silk veils, video. Photo: Jackie Manning
JULIE RRAP & JANET LAURENCE Feature in Artists' Artists Podcast
JULIE RRAP & JANET LAURENCE were interviewed by Jennifer Higgie for the National Gallery of Australia's podcast 'Artists’ Artists', a five-part series connecting audiences with works of art from the national collection through the lens of contemporary artists.
The podcast invites audiences to learn more about some of the treasures and lesser-known works in the national collection, as well as gain insight into the personal life experiences and stories of Australian and international artists.
Episode 1: Julie Rrap
Julie Rrap is an Australian artist who was born in 1950 and lives in Warrang/Sydney. She has 15 works in the national collection, including multiple works from her monumental Persona and shadow series 1984. In this episode, she speaks about works of art by Sol Wiener, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Moffatt and Yukultji Napangati.
Episode 4: Janet Laurence
Janet Laurence is an Australian artist who was born in 1947 and lives in Warrang/Sydney. In 2020-21, her work was included in National Gallery exhibition Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now: Part One. Laurence has nine works in the national collection, including the large-scale installation Requiem 2020. In this episode, she speaks about works of art by Eva Hesse, Robert Smithson, Rosalie Gascoigne and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu.