Super Nature

Humans are indivisible from nature – we are dependent on its systems and rhythms, and subject to its whims. Artists have long engaged with nature as a place where we seek solace and meaning.

This exhibition from the Art Gallery’s collection charts the adventure of human immersion in nature. Across four spaces, it explores places where humans and nature interact and intertwine, the role of gardens as memorials, the wild nature that lives alongside (and sometimes within) us, and the cultivation of nature for survival and sustenance.

Super Nature includes collection favourites, such as teamLab’s computer-generated interactive animation Flowers and people – gold 2015, where flowers gradually bud, blossom, grow and decay on digital screens; Grayson Perry’s monumental woodcut Animal spirit 2016, which skewers the pretentions of modern commerce; and Kathy Temin’s My monument: black garden 2010–11, a towering installation of organic forms in synthetic fur.

Several new acquisitions will also be shown for the first time, including Wendy Stavrianos’s Celebration of the palms, Darwin 1976–78, a major drawing made in response to the intense natural forces unleashed by Cyclone Tracy, and four brilliantly coloured paintings by Butcher Cherel Janangoo that tell of the medicinal properties of bush foods, their significance as markers of seasonal change, and their cultural significance to Gooniyandi people.