“EUCALYPT and Lotus” is a celebration of Jane Dunn’s reverence for two plant groups, the Australian eucalypt and the lotus, both of which are symbolic of geographical regions she feels close emotional bonds with.

Over the years, she reports, she has been developing my printmaking skills (screen, etching, collograph, woodblock and etching), painting and photography and she now works from a studio at M16 Art Space in Griffith, as well as printing at Megalo Print Studio.

Travels inSri Lanka,Thailand,CambodiaandIndonesiahave shown Dunn how significant the lotus is both spiritually and in everyday life to the people of those regions, so much so that she has built a lotus pond in her backyard bordering Mt Ainslie, where there are plenty of eucalypts.

The combination of eucalypt and lotus even has thematic overtones of the closeness of Australia and its South-East Asian neighbours, and also of the multicultural society and environments that many Australians create and embrace.

Dunn has etched backgrounds to highlight the line, tone, colour and texture of the gums and onto these backgrounds she printed directly from lotus and eucalypt leaves.

As well, three of the oil paintings in the show depict eucalypts on forty-year-old mountain ash fence posts she found lying around a timber yard in Yarralumla.

“Eucalypt and Lotus,” relief prints, collographs, paintings and etchings by Jane Dunn, at Form Studio and Gallery, 1/30 Aurora Avenue, Queanbeyan, until August 27.