Interwoven

Following her celebrated Through an Artist’s Journal collection last year, Archibald and Wynne Prize finalist Julianne Ross Allcorn returns with Interwoven, a new collection of major works that deepens her lyrical exploration of the Australian bush.

Drawn from countless hours in the field, where she sketches and writes among the trees, Allcorn’s paintings are a sensory immersion into native ecology. Banksias, grevilleas, wattles and gumnuts swirl in rhythmic motion across each surface, forming thickets of flora where birds, insects, and mammals flicker into view. Every brushstroke is placed with attentive care, as if preserving a fleeting moment in time. Delicate, richly layered, and dusted with glints of gold, her surfaces hum with life.

While Allcorn is best known for her distinctive use of raw plywood, where exposed areas of timber act as quiet clearings within the dense thickets of line and colour, this exhibition also introduces an extraordinary new work rendered on vintage pianola paper. This concertina of flora and fauna, unfurling like a visual scroll, highlights the artist’s affinity for rhythm and flow and underscores the musicality embedded within her compositions.

“In a contemporary manner, Ross Allcorn’s paintings channel an earlier world of detailed observation and deep reverence for the Australian bush,” says Michael Reid OAM. “From top to bottom, left to right, her works read as if you are standing within a grove of trees — seeing through the brush and into the canopy, witnessing a densely packed and active world.”