FRAGILE GROUND

A just-opened exhibition at Parnell’s Artis gallery sees two local artists come together to explore a very real issue, in two very different ways. Painter Hamish Foote and sculptor Bronwynne Cornish have created Psalm, an exhibition that seeks to shed light on the shrinking gene pool and habitats of our native birds and plants, and the increasingly fragile environment of the natural world we live in. Hamish’s soft yet meticulously detailed paintings focus on leucism, a recessive gene that can result in snowy white animals — which becomes more common as the gene pool shrinks. Bronwynne’s ceramic sculptures depict mythical creatures in ownership of seeds and and eggs, guarding them in an already compromised habitat. Both artists compel the viewer to question whether we can keep going the way we are, and how long it will be before we realise the irreversible toll on our native environment.

Psalm is showing at Artis Gallery, 280 Parnell Rd, until September 2.