Botanical Correspondents: Crossing time with Julia Holderness and Emily Cumming Harris

ZAWAA25 Premier Award winner Julia Holderness considers and responds to the work of Emily Harris, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s first professional woman artists.

Emily Cumming Harris (1837-1925) is best-known for painting the indigenous flora of Aotearoa, producing hundreds of artworks in her studio in Whakatū Nelson. One hundred years after her death, her remarkable paintings continue to invite audiences to contemplate the beauty of the natural world. Holderness responds creatively to her life, work and artistic practices.

The central component of the exhibition – a trio of installations – traces Holderness’ working and the passage of time across the project – gathering, layering, and reconfiguring fragments of Emily’s imagery alongside her own. They act as both response and continuation, tracing a dialogue with Emily’s botanical world and the multiplicity she employed in depicting plants and nature.

Image: Detail from Botanical Correspondents: Crossing time with Julia Holderness and Emily Cumming Harris