Prudence in the Daintree Room

I first met Prue Hewett a decade ago when she took me on an incredible 2 hour walking tour of the Daintree, a place she has called home for the last 40 years; she was 76, (now an amazingly spritely 86). From the moment we started walking I was blown away by her breadth of knowledge on the Daintree, and by her passion and commitment to ensuring that the oldest contiguous rainforest on the planet stays healthy and gets what it needs to exist and thrive long into the future. She is an incredible person: a conservationist, and pioneer of sustainable eco-tourism in the Daintree and lifelong educator who is knowledgeable beyond measure.
As I started to create more and more pieces in my work focused on Australian flora, I kept coming back to the idea of doing an exclusively Daintree piece; one that would include the woman who opened my eyes to its beauty. Prue really stuck with me all this time- so I reached out, and luckily for me she was interested in sitting for this piece. I flew up to the Daintree to meet her again recently and we had a lovely time catching up, and sketching out the right pose for this piece.
Prue sits central, gazing into the Daintree’s future, flanked by exclusively Daintree flora and the famous cassowary “Big Bertha” (she has graced the pages of National Geographic multiple times), who has lived on Prue’s land for decades, keeping the species numbers strong in the area for years. The flora is wonderfully bright and bizarre- no where else on earth has these beautiful alien plants. Prue was a joy to paint— beauty in the years on her face, the delicate floral pattern of her dress. She fits right into a series I’ve been calling the Bush-Wah-Zee (bourgeoisie of the Australian bush), whose intention is to promote the idea that traditional Australiana can be unapologetically high-end. Inspired by de Gournay's hand-painted wallpapers, I created a new space with exclusively Australian flora, focused on a central figure in the “room” to highlight the beauty of our native flora on a grand scale. This work is a clear demonstration of the intersection of people, place and the environment- alongside colour, passion and beauty.

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Stacey Keating (nee Kurtz) is a visual artist specializing in fine art, large scale murals for businesses and private homes, public art, and scenic art for theaters and sets. She has spent the last 20 years creating art on walls, ceilings, canvas and everything in between, with the goal of transforming the space the artwork inhabits. Her art focuses on beauty in all its forms with a focus on flora, fauna.

You may have seen some of her murals at New York University, in a Fendi print ad, in museum installations of Rodarte and Ballenciaga, or in any number of bars and restaurants across Sydney. Her work at Silvereye was featured in Vogue Australia.

Originally from New York, she now lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Her mural work can be seen in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sydney and Melbourne. Her artworks on canvas live in NY, LA, London, Sydney and other locations across the globe.

A statement from the artist:

“My art has never been one thing. My artistic interests are varied, and the art follows suit; from realism to abstract, from serious to slightly off-the-wall. I get excited about one idea, explore it for awhile and then move on. This has been a challenge throughout my career for the last 20 years: having one “look” can go a long way toward defining an artist, but in the end I’m more interested in exploring what I can do, and how I do it. The truly common thread throughout my work has always been an intense love of nature and the flora and fauna it encompasses. Increasingly I’m exploring color, movement and texture by way of abstracts, and I’m excited to see where it takes me.”