Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Sherman Galleries, Sydney
The Gene & Brian Sherman Collection, Sydney

Janet Laurence has been a much-admired artist and a dear friend for decades. Our connection was initially forged via Sherman Galleries' Curatorial Director Bill Wright and, given Janet's lifelong deep and abiding interest in plant and animal life, our bond quickly deepened.

Voiceless, the Animal Protection Institute founded by vegetarian/vegan father and daughter duo Brian and Ondine Sherman, well understood factory farming to be a blight on the delicate and intricate web-like interrelationships connecting the natural world.

They quickly came to understand the link between the blind decimation of natural resources and the brutal raising of animals packed into ominously sealed gigantic sheds – jammed in ever more tightly to satisfy society's growing demand for meat.

Our family's link with Janet was clearly forged at a profound level.

Art is not didactic, nor is direct communication its function or purpose. I believe art seeks to avoid purposefulness – preferring to reach out obliquely in order share its poeticised view of the world with those who choose to enter its embrace.

Janet's entire oeuvre arises from her concerns about the loss of natural diversity, the destruction of coral reefs and the extinction of key-to-our-ecosystem species. Across her decades-long body of work, she variously reveres, reveals, protects, scientifically analyses and attempts to heal. Her tools include scientific allusions, with medical tubes, vials and chemical rods as demonstrated with these examples, signalling help and healing. She often foregrounds architecturally beautiful, man-made structures (Palladio's Blue Room, 2005, lot 71) to remind us that the built environment can, and should be designed in such a way so as to position human kind comfortably and thoughtfully on the planet, whilst allowing all species an authentic place in the sun.

Dr Gene Sherman AM