Where the Wild Things Grow – Living Botanical Still Lifes invites audiences into a world where beauty, history, and urgency collide.
Set within the living landscape of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney in the new Garden Gallery across from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this exhibition reimagines the lush still lifes of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age through a distinctly Australian lens. Drawing on many years of photographing Australian species, the works present intricately composed “living still lifes” made entirely from native flora and birds—many of them now threatened with extinction.
These images echo the opulence and symbolism of historical European painting, yet reveal what those artists never knew: the extraordinary beauty of a continent largely absent from the visual imagination of the Golden Age. Waratahs replace tulips, finches perch where nightingales once sat, and abundance is tempered by fragility. Nearly every element is photographed from living collections, positioning photography not as possession, but as witness.
At once sumptuous and unsettling, Where the Wild Things Grow asks viewers to linger, to look closely, and to consider our responsibility as guardians of the natural world.
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