Midnight Garden

In 2021, Madison Baird entered the National Emerging Art Prize with her painting ‘When the bees are busy’. The judging panel were wowed by Baird’s accomplished depiction of nasturtiums curling out of a large glass vase, acknowledging her with a finalist placement. Prize co-founder, Amber Creswell Bell has been watching her practice develop since. For her debut showing at Michael Reid Southern Highlands, Baird has created a series of new works titled ‘Midnight Garden’.

The collection of flora – geraniums, nasturtiums and angel’s trumpets – painted in their garden settings after dark, captures the soothing solitude found in these inky nighttime environments. The calming rhythms and unhurried pace of nature invite a gentle stillness.Working on Gadigal land, Sydney, Baird “explores land as a space of emotional reprieve, of refuge, and of a soft return to a greater whole. Although without external gaze, the bush holds a mirror up to our internal states. It is a poignant reminder that, like nature, we are always in a state of becoming, akin to the flowers that bud and wither.”