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Australian
Award Winning Botanical Portrait Artist Margaret Muffet Kawarren in the Otway Ranges,
Victoria , Australia is where Margaret grew up
loving the natural surroundings of the Australian bush especially the wild
flowers. Her love of art led her to botanical exhibitions running
concurrently in Melbourne in 1996, Margaret Stones, Jenny Phillips and
other artists including Celia Rosser also the Art of Botanical
Illustration at the Herbarium in Melbourne Botanic Gardens. This was
a major turning point in Margaret's art endeavours, until the
Melbourne experience she had been working on botanical specimens in pencil
and colour pencils. After seeking out Jenny and attending her Botanical
Art School one day a week for a year Margaret decided to concentrate
on botanical painting and with Jenny's guidance chose to paint a
series of ` Protea' and to work toward exhibiting in England. After
completing 10 studies of Protea it was time to enter and travel to
the Birmingham BBC Gardeners World Live Flower Show in June 2002,
Botanical Art Show section which was judged by a panel from The Royal
Horticultural Society of London. Margaret was awarded a `Silver-Gilt Medal
in the Grenfell Range' for her exhibit and was one of 27 artists from all
parts of Europe displaying their work and competing for medals, this
enabled Margaret to see where her work stood within the world arena ,she
was not disappointed with the result. Again in 2004 Margaret
travelled to London for the Westminster Flower Show in November and
was awarded a second `Silver-Gilt Medal` in the Grenfell Range In
October 2004 a visit to the 11th International Exhibition of Botanical
Documentation at the Hunt Institution Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, as one of her Protea paintings was purchased and was included
in the exhibition and is at present travelling America until 2007
Two botanical illustrations, one pencil and one ink were selected to hang
in `The Margaret Flockton Exhibition ` held in Sydney during May-
June 2005. Margaret is principle and tutor of the Geelong Botanical Art
School and holds classes in The Geelong Botanic Gardens Friends
rooms every Tuesday, Friday & Saturday ,her students have achieved a
high standard and have arranged 3 successful exhibitions in the
local community. Margaret and a number of her students submitted work and
was selected to hang in the prestigious show `The Art of Botanical
Illustration Exhibition` Melbourne in 2004. An exhibition is also
planned for November 2005 at The Geelong Botanic Gardens where Margaret
and her students will exhibit paintings of subjects collected from
the gardens. |
