Shelagh Morgan’s work is a documentation of plants that are considered to be weeds growing on her property at Eureka near Lismore. The works are based on botanical illustrations and this scientific methodology focuses on our relationship with them and with our cultural and ecological environments more broadly.
Many of the plants featured in the Herbarium vivum were introduced for their beauty or use value, and to remind inhabitants of their former homes. These characteristics are forgotten when plants become weeds.
In depicting the ‘weeds’ in her immediate environment Morgan’s work engages in a discussion about how we inhabit the landscape and begs the question - what will a future ‘natural’ ecosystem look like?
A Lismore Regional Gallery exhibition
