Anne Kay

Born 1958, Nassau, Bahamas
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons)
Graduation show: 1999

Artwork in Space YZ

Picture Tree, 1997-1998
Photographic transparency in glass mount, slide projector and box, plastic bags, wall bracket & infra-red motion sensor
Dimensions variable

Reading an 1827 journal entry describing a journey from Annandale to Ashfield along Parramatta Rd, triggered a curiosity about the plants and trees present in Sydney before European settlement. The description of a Turpentine and Ironbark forest on either side of the road was irreconcilable with my experience of the present-day Parramatta Rd – the epitome of an industrial era urban thoroughfare.

Picture Tree evolved from a process of researching the flora of this other, earlier place by reading botanical texts, and visiting and photographing areas of remnant pre-settlement vegetation. The photographic image projected onto the surface of the plastic bag in this work (which came from a chance encounter with the collection of plastic bags in my studio), is of a 25m tall Blackbutt (Eucalyptus pilularis) in Ashfield Park, Sydney. According to a Royal Botanical Garden publication, its height and 10m girth suggests that it is very old, and likely a remnant of the original growth in the area before European settlement.

The faded, washed-out image of this Eucalypt resonates with European influenced Australian landscape paintings, or with photographs from 1960-70s school geography books. These represented trees come with complex cultural baggage, which can colour or possibly determine an experience of nature. Perhaps the relationship that most urban dwellers have to native vegetation or ‘the bush,’ has much more to do with the way it is represented (to us, and for us), than with any direct experience of it. 

The most remarkable thing about revisiting this 1998 work, made when I lived in Sydney, is that the plastic bags are completely unchanged after 22 years. Our plastic waste will outlive us.

I had completed my Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts in 1994 and when I decided to go on to further study in 1997, I decided to apply to University of Western Sydney to have access to new critical feedback from the academics there. I had heard positive feedback about the artists there and I admired their work. I was not disappointed. I also met someone there who is one of my best friends today.

Beige and Brown Customs, 2001