Lynne Uptin: 2024 RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show, Saatchi Gallery, London

It is now early winter where I live in Tasmania, Australia’s island State. My studio looks across to Bruny Island and is on the banks of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, both named for the French explorer Bruni D’Entrecasteaux.  The voyages of French explorers Bruny D’Entrecasteaux and Nicolas Baudin brought historically important plant collections back to Europe. Plants brought to Europe from the Baudin voyage were grown by Josephine Boneparte at Malmaison and painted by Redouté. The type specimens for the Eucalyptus genus were collected on Bruny Island for Sir Joseph Banks and Kew Gardens on one of the James Cook voyages. The anchorages of the ships of D’Entrecasteaux and Baudin are within the view from my romantic tower studio, and I now grow many of these plants in my garden, inspiring my botanical art practice.

Tasmania is the point at which Australia, as the last landmass of Gondwanaland, broke away from Antarctica and moved north some 40 million years ago. Much of Tasmania’s flora and fauna has its origins in Gondwana prehistory and helps us to explain Continental Drift. The plants I have painted for this RHS exhibition reflect their interest as Gondwana remnants.

Much of Tasmania has been declared a World Heritage area for its ancient temperate rainforests and it is here that the Richea species are found, some in very remote places. In fact, the Richea genus is almost unique to Tasmania and I have selected six species for this exhibition. These plants carry their own special history as they were in the most part collected and named by influential botanists Robert Brown and Joseph Dalton Hooker on the voyages of Matthew Flinders circumnavigation of Australia and the Ross voyage to Antarctica. Richeas are not seen readily in cultivation, but I have managed to establish Richea dracophylla  and Richea gunnii in my garden. I also have a mobile studio which is a significant help to me in accessing plants in remote parts of Tasmania

I am a latecomer to Botanical Art, although my whole career has been in the arts in one way or another. I studied at the National Art School in Sydney before working as an illustrator for 13 years. In the following years, I established two commercial art galleries and co-managed a large ceramics workshop. I also setup and operated a hot glass studio in collaboration with the Sydney College of the Arts.

I moved to Tasmania in 1984 and was invited to establish Australia’s first vocational practice course for artists at the Tasmanian School of Art.  In 1986, I was invited to join the State Government’s arts funding body where I became its Director for almost 20 years. I was rewarded with an Order of Australia Medal for services to arts administration in 2010.