LARISSA GRAY

​

Larissa Gray grew up in a semi-rural area of Sydney, NSW surrounded by bushland and from an early age all Larissa ever wanted to do was to make art. 

Larissa was accepted into the competitive National Art School in Sydney at age 16. She majored in Sculpture and Photography, graduating in 1996 at age 20. Upon entering the wide world, she found her art degree and lack of life experience a formidable opponent in her struggle for survival, so she went off to find a job and herself. Not much art happened after that for quite some time as she became a tumble weed travelling overseas and around Australia and eventually embarking on a career with animals, her second love.

Larissa’s career with animals had her vet nursing, training, and working dogs for both state and federal governments in NSW, WA and VIC and eventually working in animal welfare. In 2012 this work eventually led her to Melbourne, Victoria and in 2016 she settled down in the regional town of Kyneton where she now lives with her partner and two dogs. A tumble weed no longer and with very many things to say and express Larissa’s art slowly come back into her life and daily practice. 

Larissa specialises in small scale bronze and mixed media sculptures, producing works that reflect the beauty and soul of nature and the environment around her. During her childhood surrounded by bushland, Larissa formed a deep affinity for the Australian bush and all the elements - colours, textures, scents, sounds - strongly influence her work. Her love of animals is also an ever-present feature in her work.

Larissa’s work has been described as quietly thought provoking. Themes throughout her work often explore the idea of a personal journey through the complexities of human nature and our relationship to the natural world. Through her imaginings Larissa hopes to evoke a wanderlust in the viewer, allowing them to travel through their dreams and memories, into a quiet place within they all too often forget to visit. 

In 2019 Larissa won a grant with the Macedon Ranges Shire council to produce 3 sculptures as part of a cultural exchange program with sister city of Tokai, Japan. These 3 works are now on permanent display in the Tokai Cultural Arts Centre.

BOTANICAL ARTIST

 FREYA MACLAREN 

is an artist and gardener living and working on the lands of the Dja Dja Warrung in Central Victoria. She creates intricate and detailed botanical illustrations in ballpoint pen combining a delicate realism with the complexity of botanic specimens.

Her work is concerned with the fragility of existence, the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of adversity.

In the garden Freya is captivated by the intricate beauty of plants as they journey and transform through their life cycle; from germination, bloom, reproduction, dispersal, and eventual decay. Her works, capturing plant specimens in variying life stages speak to the transience and impermanence that defines all life.

When collecting specimens Freya is drawn to the humble, imperfect and overlooked. She seeks the artistry in the ordinary, rejecting the easy beauty of perfection and acknowledging that true beauty often exists alongside struggle and hardship.

“We seek beauty, but our understanding of its nature is limited” Cooper Jones 2021

Freya began drawing botanical illustrations during the 2020 pandemic. In 2022 she exhibited her first works and in 2023 had two small local solo shows A Single Stem (The Cosmopolitan, Trentham) and Adaptation, Selection, Survival (Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space).