Less valuable than precious

Semiprecious considers the notion of ‘ecological concerns’ and the entanglement of anxieties about the future of the planet when we witness and contemplate nature.

Acknowledging our enduring fascination with intricate forms and complexities of biological life on a macro scale, and the romantic power and liberatory associations of ‘landscapes’ which have long occupied the popular imagination, this photographic series is interested in the ways we relate to the non-human aspects of nature. Particularly, what it means to tend this relationship in a time of undoubted change and peril to the natural world.

Be it contemplating the strange landscape of morphing hues and curious projecting pillars on a sea star’s limbs, the uncharismatic and alien beauty of a seldom-named invertebrate clinging to the underside of a rocky reef, or encountering the labyrinthine valleys and corridors hiding amongst the folds of a tree’s bark or between the flowers of a banksia’s candle.

Through further experimentation with water and pigment that form their own microcosm and abstract response to this practice of underwater and wilderness photography, an invitation to pause and consider an environment in flux is presented.

Semiprecious attempts to question how, whilst in recognition of our current ecological predicament, our relationship to the natural world will change with the probable course of future crises. It is also an unabashed celebration of the quotidian beauty to be found hiding around us and the transporting and therapeutic powers yielded by a deeper communion with nature.