Walking within a grassy woodland is a collage of photographs and lumen prints simulating a grassy woodland. It includes groups of different plant communities including native grasses, trees and Australian shrubs found prior to settlement and observed on my daily walks.
Read MoreLooking Closer
Looking Closer is an archive of photographic lumen prints created from indigenous grassland specimens primarily grown in my backyard.
Read MoreGeomorphology
Geomorphology explores the immense forces of nature that shape the ancient rock formations of the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. Thousands of years of intermittent floods have carved canyons through the quartzite, creating waterholes and creeks. Alongside these grow River Red Gums that have adapted over time, taking over dry riverbeds and sending their roots deep underground to find water.
Read MoreCoastal Collection / Dianna Wells
Coastal Collection engages with ideas about landscape, botany and 19th-century photography. The installation of black-and-white photographs and a wallpaper frieze explore the notion of ‘the new wild’ by examining coastal areas in and around Melbourne where introduced plant species grow wild.
Read MoreFinding Wild / Dianna Wells
What is contemporary wilderness? Can plants considered weeds, such as fireweed and African boxthorn, sustain biodiversity in dunes, creeks and remnant bushland within our city and its fringes? Indigenous species found in the dunes on Brighton’s Dendy Street Beach and at Deep Creek in the coastal township of Torquay coexist with many invasive but benign species. In these environments, introduced species prevent erosion and provide habitat for birds, reptiles, insects and other animals.
Read MoreBoundaries / Sophie Cunningham
“The Plan when I embarked on an exploration of the City of Melbourne’s current boundaries was that photographer Dianna Wells and I would walk close to thirty-five kilometres of parkland, rivers, roads and freeway. But negotiating the boundaries was not always possible, despite our willingness to dodge roadwork signs and walk under, rather than drive over, freeways. In the end, permits were needed to negotiate sections around the ports, cars were required, a ferry was caught, bicycles braved on windy days, and heavy photographic equipment was lugged from place to place”.
Read MoreDianna Wells's suburban geometries / Vanessa Mooney
Photographer Dianna Wells creates a colourful, sharp and striking vision of the outer-suburban built environment in her series Suburban Geometric. The body of work was recently exhibited at the Gee Lee-Wik Doleen Gallery in Craigieburn, a suburb 30 km north of the Melbourne CBD that is a veritable hot spot of outer-suburban growth.
Read MoreSuburban Geometric / Dianna Wells
Suburban Geometric is a series of photographic images which reflects on our relationship with a rapidly expanding built environment on the fringe of Melbourne. My previous work explored the change to the environment from pastoral land to urban development. My primary interest over the past year has been the dominance of architectural design in developer-driven communities such as Craigieburn and Caroline Springs.
Read MoreOn Edge / Caroline Jordan
For the past two and a half years Dianna Wells has been driving out on the weekends to Melbourne’s city fringes to the north, south-east and west: Cranbourne, Epping, Wyndham Vale, Wollert. She returns over and over again to the same favourite sites, like Harvest Home Road, Epping, which begins at Darebin Creek, and Lollipop Creek at Wyndham Vale. She is fond of watercourses and also ancient gumtrees. Some of her misty images evoke the nostalgic, picturesque pastoral landscapes painted by Hans Heysen and Elioth Gruner in the 1920s, with the difference that Wells’ subject is the future that is just about to happen, rather than the past.
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