The Botanist Ed. 1 of 12

The Botanist is an ode to the gardener, cottage witch and naturalist that lives inside many of us. She sit with the bounty harvested from her garden and the nearby forest. Ready to make remedies, spells, or perhaps just a really nice salad. The Botanist embraces her inner wild and lives closely with nature. She is a quirky, playful, soulful spirit to call upon in our busy, material world. A green thumb patroness.

Like many of my artworks, this is a self portrait. All of the goods collected to arrange for the still life were harvested from my very own garden.

Printed by a master printer using archival methods and materials.

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Lauren Starr is an Australian photo-media artist whose work explores women’s stories through history, folklore, fairytale, and the Australian landscape. Drawing on colonial histories, personal ancestry, and mythic archetypes, she creates narrative works that reimagine the past through a contemporary lens.

Working with staged photography, painterly textures, and digital compositing, Starr constructs richly layered images that sit between reality and myth. Her practice is particularly concerned with memory, inheritance, belonging, and the ways women’s lives become embedded within landscape.

Recent bodies of work have explored female narratives from the Victorian goldfields, acts of re-wilding and reclamation, and the enduring relationship between women, story, and place.

Starr is the recipient of the 2022 Bluethumb Art Prize (Photography Category and Grand Prize). Her work has been acquired by Parliament House Melbourne and Bendigo Art Gallery, and has been recognised through the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, Ravenswood Women's Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Head On Photo Awards, and other national exhibitions.

www.laurenstarr.com.au
@laurenstarrartist