SALA in the Garden

Date posted: 31 July 2016

Date: 1-31 August (with opening afternoon on Sunday 31 July)
Time: 10am to 3pm in North Lodge, 9am to 5pm in Diggers Garden Shop, 11am to 5pm at the Barber Shop Rotunda
Where: Adelaide Botanic Garden (find locations on the map)

Four diverse exhibitions will be held at Adelaide Botanic Garden in August as part of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival, including a 360-degree virtual reality experience.

An official opening afternoon for Adelaide Botanic Garden’s SALA exhibitions will take place in the Amazon Waterlily Pavilion from 2-4pm on Sunday 31 July

The general public is invited to attend to listen to opening speeches, meet the artists and then then view the exhibitions for the first time.

The opening afternoon coincides with the Garden's National Tree Day celebrations, featuring a free guided walk and tree planting.

Caught Dancing, by Adam Durst

Where: North Lodge

This exciting photographic art series features a mixture of candid and formal portraits that project the uniqueness and beauty of flowers. To catch and show-off the “good side”, flowers are treated as unique beings with unique personalities. Many of the flowers from around the garden are caught in candid intimate moments, dancing in the breeze, basking in the sun. Complementing these are a number of formal portraits with the flowers in their best dress and on show. Viewers will emotionally connect with the flowers and look and think deeper about what beauty is.

In Full Bloom, by Elisabeth Howlett

Where: North Lodge

Elisabeth Howlett paints beauty on to canvas. She presents an array of flowers, featuring iconic blooms from the Botanic Gardens, in a modern painterly style. She translates the graceful forms of nature on to canvas - flowers in-situ, flower "close ups" and floral bouquets, which she regularly arranges. Elisabeth is captivated by their shapes, colours and textures, and most of all, their “blooms”. Elisabeth applies thick impasto-style oil paint on to canvas, emphasising the texture and pattern left by the brush. Although primarily decorative, Elisabeth’s work has a conservation element, the artist having transitioned from a career in law and environment policy into art.

More Gardener's Folly, by Alison Mitchell

Where: Diggers Garden Shop

Returning to Diggers Garden Shop, Alison Mitchell is showing more work inspired by her garden. Painted directly from life, bound to the seasonal shifts of nature - to the rhythms of growth, fruition and decay - this year’s emphasis is on the autumn garden – pomegranates, quinces, chilies and tomatoes. Drop in and see the folly of the gardener who’d rather be painting than weeding.

Otanical - a 360-degree virtual reality work

Where: Barber Shop Rotunda
When: 5-7 and 12-14 August ONLY, screening every five minutes from 11am to 5pm
SALA Awards: finalist in the Unitcare Services Moving Images Award - winner to be announced in August

Otanical invites the audience to enter a world of imagination, possibility and mystery - looking between what is there and what is not. In a 360-degree virtual reality performance, characters come to life through dance, theatre, and you – the audience. And so, the dream begins…...See beyond...Believe...

Presented by Felicity Arts and created by a multi-award winning team and the characters of Otanical. Suitable for all ages. Please note that the creators of Otanical, Amanda Phillips & Alexander Waite Mitchell, will be onsite at the Barber Shop Rotunda to greet you.