Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Limited edition letterpress print
Plants carry stories.
When I began researching Walter Hill, Brisbane’s first colonial botanist, I found myself looking at the plants he introduced and cultivated not simply as botanical specimens, but as traces of another time.
Hill was testing what might grow in the unfamiliar soil and climate of a young colony. Some plants promised food. Others medicine. Some could feed livestock. And some were valued for what they might produce economically.
Tobacco was one of those plants.
Hill imported varieties of tobacco, sugar cane and tea to test their suitability for Queensland conditions. Looking through original botanical illustrations held in the State Library of Queensland, I became fascinated by the tobacco leaf itself—its elongated, curling form and the possibilities it held once removed from the conventions of botanical illustration.
I began drawing.
As the leaves were extracted, repeated and reorganised, the plant slowly became something else. The resulting pattern felt almost tattoo-like: botanical, but no longer simply descriptive.
There was another connection to the past I wanted to preserve. I printed Tobacco on an original Heidelberg Windmill letterpress, allowing a contemporary pattern to come into being through the physical impression of a traditional printing process.
A plant once cultivated for its economic value had become the starting point for something entirely different.
Plant became pattern. History became image.
The Edition
Released in an edition of just ten, Tobacco is letterpress printed on Magnani Incisioni 650/5 Smooth White 100% cotton rag paper using rubber-based inks.
Each print is signed, titled and individually numbered on the front, wrapped in acid-free tissue and presented in a custom protective envelope. It is accompanied by information detailing the artwork, the Collected Patterns series and its place within the edition.
The print is sold unframed and ships worldwide in a rigid protective envelope.
Edition: 10
Paper size: 300 × 260 mm
Paper: Magnani Incisioni 650/5 Smooth White, 100% cotton rag
Printing: Letterpress with rubber-based inks
Press: Heidelberg Windmill
Signed: Signed, titled and numbered on front
Framing: Unframed
Shipping: Worldwide
Limited edition letterpress print
Plants carry stories.
When I began researching Walter Hill, Brisbane’s first colonial botanist, I found myself looking at the plants he introduced and cultivated not simply as botanical specimens, but as traces of another time.
Hill was testing what might grow in the unfamiliar soil and climate of a young colony. Some plants promised food. Others medicine. Some could feed livestock. And some were valued for what they might produce economically.
Tobacco was one of those plants.
Hill imported varieties of tobacco, sugar cane and tea to test their suitability for Queensland conditions. Looking through original botanical illustrations held in the State Library of Queensland, I became fascinated by the tobacco leaf itself—its elongated, curling form and the possibilities it held once removed from the conventions of botanical illustration.
I began drawing.
As the leaves were extracted, repeated and reorganised, the plant slowly became something else. The resulting pattern felt almost tattoo-like: botanical, but no longer simply descriptive.
There was another connection to the past I wanted to preserve. I printed Tobacco on an original Heidelberg Windmill letterpress, allowing a contemporary pattern to come into being through the physical impression of a traditional printing process.
A plant once cultivated for its economic value had become the starting point for something entirely different.
Plant became pattern. History became image.
The Edition
Released in an edition of just ten, Tobacco is letterpress printed on Magnani Incisioni 650/5 Smooth White 100% cotton rag paper using rubber-based inks.
Each print is signed, titled and individually numbered on the front, wrapped in acid-free tissue and presented in a custom protective envelope. It is accompanied by information detailing the artwork, the Collected Patterns series and its place within the edition.
The print is sold unframed and ships worldwide in a rigid protective envelope.
Edition: 10
Paper size: 300 × 260 mm
Paper: Magnani Incisioni 650/5 Smooth White, 100% cotton rag
Printing: Letterpress with rubber-based inks
Press: Heidelberg Windmill
Signed: Signed, titled and numbered on front
Framing: Unframed
Shipping: Worldwide