green waste

​Of Obscured Significance, Murray Bridge Regional Gallery 29 August - 12 October 2014

"Returning to the most immediate of media, Louise Flaherty employs pencil in her suit of images to illustrate discreet bursts of the natural environment as it emanates from gardens, verges and even concrete, broken, abutted and weathered over time.
In depicting leave, stems, branches and weeds, the artists dwells deliberately on nature as both object and essence, understanding its purity and foundation, and yet aware of its guided presence in the urban landscape. Though Flaherty is considerate of her surroundings and environment she is also critical of it. She ponders the preposterousness within endemic ideas of floral beauty and garden design that pervade suburban dwellings. Encapsulated here are concerns of environmental impact and sustainability as a result of introduced species to the detriment of native ones.  The rose bush provided a palpable example. 
Rendered in isolation upon the page, her living objects are transformed from their natural setting into an artistic one.  However, despite their shifting status from outdoors to studio, every line sketched and each shadow minutely deepened, continues to express the elemental. 
Flaherty’s musing about nature has magnified following time spent in the north of the country at Tennant Creek, where native flora beyond the immediate township appeared much more useful in terms of ecology. Her quiet intimate drawings reveal and renew connectivity with nature that need not be utopia, just genuine." Nerina Dent, catalogue essay for 'Of Obscured Significance'

Of Obscured Significance - The Adelaide Review October 2014