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For the British author and cookery writer, see Janet Laurence (author).

Janet Laurence (born in 1947) is an Australian artist who lives in Sydney. She creates art using photography, sculpture, video, and installation art. Her work shows her deep care for the environment and how we should treat it. She calls it her "ecological quest" because she wants her art to help people feel a stronger connection with nature. Her art has been shown in big exhibitions both in Australia and around the world, including Japan, Germany, Hong Kong, and the UK. She often works with architects, landscape designers, and scientists on projects, sometimes even outside of galleries. Her art can be found in major Australian galleries and private collections globally.

About Janet Laurence

Janet Laurence was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1947, and she still lives and works there today.

In the late 1970s, Janet studied art in Sydney and Italy. From 1979 to 1981, she lived in New York City to continue her art studies. While there, she was inspired by an exhibition of Joseph Beuys's work and discovered "Earth artists" or "Land artists." These artists create art using natural landscapes. She was especially impressed by Alan Sonfist's Time Landscape, a garden that is a permanent artwork.

In 1981, Janet spent three months at Bennington College in the forests of Vermont. This experience made her think about creating art outside of traditional gallery spaces.

She returned to Sydney in 1982 and continued her studies at the City Art Institute. By 1994, she had earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New South Wales.

Janet has received important awards, including an Australia Council Fellowship (1996–1998) and a Churchill Fellowship (2006).

From 1995 to 2005, she was a trustee at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In 2007, Janet was the subject of a winning portrait by John Beard for the Archibald Prize. This famous prize is given by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The portrait shows Janet thinking deeply, using black and white with interesting light and shadows.

From 2007 to 2009, she was part of the Visual Arts Board for the Australia Council.

Since 2008, Janet has been a visiting fellow at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.

She is also a council member of Voiceless, a group that works to protect animals.

Her Artworks

Janet Laurence creates both small and large artworks. She has increasingly focused on big, outdoor pieces that make you feel like you're part of them. She uses natural materials like minerals, plant matter, corals, and even taxidermy birds.

She is known for helping to make "installation art" more accepted in Australia. This type of art often involves creating a special environment or experience for the viewer. One of her early big projects was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Canberra War Memorial in 1991. She worked with architects to create four tall pillars made of different materials in the Hall of Memories.

Janet started focusing on science in her art around 1990. She uses scientific ideas to explore how things change and transform in nature.

In the early 2000s, her art also became more political. She wanted to connect the artist, the artwork, and the person viewing it. Viewers often become part of her installations, able to walk through or look through them.

Some of her important commissioned artworks include:

  • Australian War Memorial, London: Created with architects.
  • Tarkine for a World in Need of Wilderness: Located at Macquarie Bank in London. The Tarkine is a special wilderness area in Tasmania, Australia, that is a World Heritage Site.
  • In the Shadow, Sydney 2000 Olympic Park: This artwork is along a creek and uses rods to represent water testing. Janet explained that the work shows how polluted water can be cleaned. It also creates a quiet place for people to think.
  • Waterveil, CH2 Building for Melbourne City Council: This work uses tall glass panels, some with images of glass containers printed on them. The panels are slightly colored to look like liquid flowing through them. They are on the building's outside windows, so you can see them from both inside and out.
  • Elixir, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan: This is a permanent artwork inside a traditional Japanese house. It includes a glass panel with painted designs, plants, liquids, blown-glass vials, and laboratory glass.
  • Memory of Lived Spaces, T3 Terminal Changi Singapore: This artwork mixes architecture with nature. It uses photographic panels with painted glass sheets on top.

Janet Laurence was Australia's representative at the United Nation’s Convention on Climate Change in 2015. Her artwork, Deep Breathing Resuscitation for the Reef (at the Australia Museum), showed how fragile the Great Barrier Reef is because of climate change. This artwork used pigments, acrylic boxes, and laboratory glass to hold wet specimens and coral.

Janet believes that when artists create works in nature, it makes people pay more attention to it. She also thinks that being a woman artist has influenced her work. She wanted to create art that explored spaces in a different way than men might, without having to paint obvious symbols.

Art Collections

Janet Laurence's artworks are part of many important collections, including:

Exhibitions

Janet Laurence has shown her work in many exhibitions, both by herself and with other artists. Here are a few notable ones:

  • 1981: First solo exhibition: Notes from the Shore, Central Street Gallery, Sydney.
  • 1992: Synthesis, Bond Stores, Sydney (about artists and architects working together).
  • 2000: Muses: Janet Laurence, Artist in the Museum, Ian Potter Museum, National Gallery of Victoria.
  • 2010: Waiting, 17th Biennale of Sydney, Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.
  • 2012: In Memory of Nature, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
  • 2014: The Skullbone Experiment: A Paradigm of Art and Nature, Launceston Museum, Tasmania.
  • 2016: Deep Breathing (Resuscitation for the Reef), Australian Museum.
  • 2017: Inside the Flower, Internationale Garten Ausstellung (IGA), Berlin, Germany.
  • 2019: After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney.

Permanent Artworks in Public Places

These are artworks by Janet Laurence that are permanently installed in specific locations:

  • 2003: Elixir, Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, Japan.
  • 2003: The Breath We Share, Sidney Myer Bendigo Art Gallery, Vic.
  • 2006: Waterveil, CH2 Building for Melbourne City Council, Melbourne.
  • 2007: The Memory of Lived Spaces, Changi T3 Airport Terminal, Singapore.
  • 2010: Ghost, Lake Macquarie Gallery, NSW.
  • 2011: Tarkine (For a World in Need of Wilderness), Macquarie Bank, London, UK.
  • 2015: Veiling Glass Medicine Maze, Novartis Sydney NSW.

Awards

  • 1995: Royal Australian Institute of Architects ‘Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design’ for First Government House Place, Sydney.
  • 1996: Alice Prize, Alice Springs, NT.
  • 1997: Rockefeller Fellowship.
  • 1996–1998: Australia Council Fellowship.
  • 2006: Churchill Fellowship.
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