Janet Laurence on Interconnectivity and Alchemical Transformation

Presenting in a curated group show with ARC ONE Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne), Janet Laurence embraces the idea of interconnectivity within her work, which spans photography, sculpture, video, and installation. Melbourne Art Fair speaks with Janet about exploring alchemical transformation, creating works from a place of empathy, and what we can expect to see from her works at the event.

Laurence’s works will be presented alongside those by Marina Rolfe and John Young, Booth C1.

Your practice conveys the idea of interconnectivity between all living beings, and our conflicting relationship with nature, often in response to a specific site. Can you expand?

Indeed, my work embodies the interconnection between all living things. It’s something completely embedded in my thinking, so naturally it lives within my process in making work.

From the conceptualization of the work, the subject is partly triggered by the ability to see the potential which I want to amplify through the process of making the work. For example, right now I’m beginning a series of works about the evolving knowledge of the mysterious interconnection between plants and minerals, and the exceptional language between plants, trees, earth and rocks. There is now clear scientific data to support this fascinating language.

Janet Laurence, preparation for the new work. Photo: Jacquie Manning. Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne).

You describe your work as exploring alchemical transformation. What do you mean by this term and how do you capture these transformations in your works?

I love imagining the invisible and illusive states of desire whereby certain elements and materials create a state of symbiotic alchemy, combining or reacting with one another.

It is of course chemistry, however taking it into an artistic realm the alchemical has a much more romantic and philosophical dimension.  It is its own abstract field with a world of possibilities. It enables me to make decisions combining matter, materials, objects, and colour that can create an aesthetic, based on my alchemical language.

I often use translucent images and materials in my work so that light can pass through, creating haunting bleeds and provocative combinations of colour, image, and shadow. This way, creatively I set up alchemy.

How has your decade-spanning interdisciplinary practice evolved since you first started? How has the climate crisis – which has only grown more dire – impacted your work?

I began my practice as a way of exploring the world of nature around me. This of course went into various areas of nature from clouds to forests to the sea and glacial world. The more I see the more I realise its fragility and wonder and the catastrophe of climate change and the human over development.

I bring this into my work not as a didactic statement but as empathy, care and love for this amazing world of nature, the more than human world that without a voice is being rapidly lost.

Janet Laurence, Celestial, Salt, Sea, 2024, duraclear on shinkalite acrylic, oil and pigments, 100 x 240 x 10cm. Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne).

With a body of work that is as emotive as it is conceptual, do you hope that your works provoke action in some capacity from the viewer?

I believe strongly in the necessity for the artist’s voice to speak up. My question is how can art reach the hearts and minds of those in power, who seem more present and more remote than ever?

What can we expect see in your presentation with Arc One Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair?

The work will be the beginning of my new exploration into a love affair between rocks, and their inherent ancient minerals, and plants and their essential needs for survival.

I call it the Planetary gardening series and it questions the relationship between mining sites and the specific needs of the trees and plants that depend on those minerals. And yet, they continue to be extinguished by mining and so these plants become living planetary rarities and the great treasures of the world.

Janet Laurence, Hidden celestial from the Planetary gardening series, 2024
Duraclear on shinkalite acrylic, oil pigment, 100 x 273 x 10cm. Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne).

Melbourne Art Fair returns 20 – 23 February, to the MCEC. Click here to secure tickets.