Nationally & Internationally Recognised Australian Environmental Artist
(TVS Ambassador)
I am a Sydney based artist exhibiting nationally and internationally. My practice explores our material physical, cultural and often conflicted relationship with the natural world. Through immersive environments, I bring organic and natural systems into close proximity, inviting us to consider not only how we observe nature, but how deeply our own lives are entangled within it.
Trees have become a central presence in this enquiry. I return to them as great signals of life on our planet: living beings that register time, carry memory and bear witness to change. Within their rings, scars, roots and branching forms, trees hold traces of climate, disturbance and renewal. They connect what is buried beneath the ground with what reaches into the atmosphere, making visible the interdependence of soil, water, air, light and the countless species that depend upon them.
At a time of accelerating climate change, trees also embody both fragility and endurance. Their loss can mark the devastation of a place, while their survival and regeneration can become an expression of hope. In my work, I ask what the act of healing might mean in damaged environments, and how art might create a space in which ecological grief, care and the desire for connection can coexist.
Trees are not simply symbols within this process; they are active participants in the living systems upon which we depend profoundly within human history. They become politicised through questions of land, ownership, extraction and protection, and they stand as witnesses to migration, conflict and cultural change. They are woven through our economic, psychological, medicinal, spiritual and built worlds.They create the air we breath have used them for shelter and fuel, medicine and nourishment, ceremony and remembrance their lives extending far beyond human use. Each tree is a world in itself: a singular being, rooted in a particular place, and at the same time a habitat and meeting ground for many other forms of life.
I exhibit in museums and galleries, as well as in architectural, landscaped and public spaces. These different settings allow my work to bring the living world into dialogue with human structures and systems. By focusing attention on materials, processes and vulnerable ecologies, I hope to encourage a slower and more attentive encounter with the natural world – one grounded in respect, reciprocity and care.
For this reason, I feel deeply aligned with the work of the Tree Veneration Society. To cultivate reverence for trees is not a nostalgic gesture; it is an urgent cultural task. It asks us to recognise trees as living presences, as communities and as witnesses whose futures are inseparable from our own. I am delighted to be invited as an ambassador for the Society and to support its commitment to placing trees, in all their complexity and wonder, at the centre of our cultural life.
Website – www.janetlaurence.com
Instagram – @janetlaurence
