Exhibitions

Garden Sanctuary brings together four contemporary artists — Dolores Skowronski-Malloni, Mark Dober, Samuel Mulcahy and Qun Zhang — whose work responds to the richness and complexity of Australian plant life. Spanning botanical illustration, large-scale watercolour and gouache, and sculptural practice, the exhibition traverses wild, cultivated, suburban and imagined landscapes, revealing flora as both resilient and vulnerable: embedded in ecosystems, daily life and shared memory.

Grounded in the landscapes of Gariwerd/Grampians and western Victoria, the exhibition foregrounds plants endemic to the region, with its timing aligned to spring and the Pomonal Flower Show. Through scientific observation, environmental awareness, cultural reflection and imaginative interpretation, Garden Sanctuary invites audiences to reconsider how they see plants — as fragile, resilient, culturally meaningful, and deeply connected to human wellbeing.

By placing artistic practice into dialogue with ecological awareness, Garden Sanctuary foregrounds both the fragility and the restorative power of flora as a vital means of understanding, encounter and care at a time of profound environmental transformation.

The exhibition is accompanied by a public program including artist-led workshops with Mark Dober and Dolores Skowronski-Malloni.

Image: Qun Zhang, Sebastopol Street, watercolour, water soluble pencil and technical pen on cotton paper.