Bellarine botanics exhibition

Local artists have come together to celebrate the Bellarine’s flora in a group exhibition at Drysdale gallery, Artisans of Australia.

More than 30 artists working in mixed mediums of sculpture, glass, painting and textiles have contributed to the “Flora of the Bellarine” show.

Artisans of Australia, the Bellarine Landcare Group and Bellarine Catchment Network is hosting the four-week exhibit which uses art to argue for greater protection and conservation of the peninsula’s plants.

“Only five per cent of the original native vegetation of our peninsula survives,” Dr Andrea Lindsay from Bellarine Landcare explained.

“Scientific logic has limitations in convincing people that we must protect and expand this remnant.

“Art can be more powerful – it speaks to people’s hearts; and so around 30 local artists have joined together to tell the ancient story, that beauty matters, our local biodiversity is precious beyond short-term monitory interests, that it nourishes our souls.”

Coinciding with National Tree Day on July 31, the local Landcare group opened its indigenous nursery to the public, selling plants for $1 to $2.50 from the gallery to assist with native revegetation of the area.

“Once our peninsula was clothed in open forests, woodlands and hardy coastal shrubs,” landcare member Sophie Small said. “For thousands of years the Wadawurrung people husbanded this land so that its biodiversity thrived.

“From the 1840s British settlers began converting the region to grazing, and crop land and trees were felled to feed Melbourne’s insatiable appetite for firewood.

“By the 1870s, farmers were so concerned about the loss of trees that they wrote to von Mueller at the Royal Botanic Gardens asking for tree seedlings to re-afforest bare paddocks. He obliged by sending American and European trees!”

The show is open seven days a week until August 25 at 33 Murradoc Rd in Drysdale. For more information visit artisansofaustralia.com.