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Dorothy Erikson’s work primarily draws inspiration from the flora, fauna, colours and light of Western Australia, though the first years of the twenty-first century saw her making work based on the paintings of the Austrian Gustav Klimt following a stint in Vienna and a solo exhibition in the legendary Galerie am Graben.
Erickson, the daughter of a prominent naturalist, botanical illustrator and author, has been immersed in the unique flora that is Western Australia’s heritage for as long as she can remember. She painted wildflowers as a child and in the 1960s researched at Kew Herbarium and the Natural History Museum, South Kensington London while studying at the Chelsea Institute at night. However it has only been since she was commissioned in 2009 to write A Joy Forever: The Story of Kings Park – Perth’s iconic park and botanic garden followed closely by the death of her mother, that she turned her attention to Western Australia’s unique flora as a subject for her jewellery.
The work on exhibition is diverse with the Homage to Klimt selection featuring precious and semi-precious stones set in gold capturing the essence of Klimt’s paintings, to her well known kinetic Jewellery and recent Wildflower Collections.
Few of the jewellery pieces are literal translations of Australian wildflowers, instead they are evocations of colour, form or habit of individual species of our precious and endangered heritage.
This exhibition celebrates forty five years of jewellery and includes newly commenced pieces for her Connections Collection, based on research into her antecedents and their occupations in Australia, Scotland, Wales, England and Sweden.
Artsite Gallery
1 to 23 November, 2014
Sydney
Dampiera lindleyi, 2014, necklace; steel cable, lapis lazuli, gold-plated silver beads, titanium, 30 x 30 x 2cm
