biochrome textiles – exploring the space between seeing and knowing

Between Space and Abstraction Exhibition Poster, 26 Sept-22 Nov 2026, FGS Chung Tian Temple

Opening Event: Saturday 26 Sept 2026; Time: 1:30 pm

Artist Talks by Renata Buziak & Andrea Moser: Sun 15 Nov, 1:30 pm

Exhibition Dates:

26 Sept – 22 Nov 2026

Location:

FGS Chung Tian Temple Exhibition Hall

1034 Underwood Road

Priestdale, QLD 4127, Australia

Open hours: Tuesday – Sunday

10 am – 3 pm

 

Five botanical clolourful vertical artworks next to each other

Enjoy free activity cards:

Gondwanan lineage flora and fauna

Created in Collaboration with Iwona Buziak and Paula Peters

Art activity cards - Gondwana 2024 update-Renata Buziak

Between Space and Abstraction

2026 Australia Taiwan Imagery & Cultural Exchange

This exhibition, curated by Melody Chen, brings together Australian and Taiwanese artists to foster cultural exchange and greater understanding between the two countries. It is also an opportunity to celebrate the multicultural character of contemporary Australia through art.

Australian-based artists
Renata Buziak · April Giblin · Yumiko Kigoshi · Andrea Moser · Szczepan Urbanowicz

Taiwanese artists
Chen Huimin · Chen Meizhu · Huang Tiankai

Artist Talks by Renata Buziak and Andrea Moser

As part of AELA’s 2026 Earth Arts Kinship program

Natural Processes, Lifecycles and Legacy

Renata will share her rainforest biochrome textiles and her process of working in collaboration with plants and natural processes. Using plant material and photographic materials, she allows moisture, microorganisms, plant chemistry, temperature and time to transform the photographic surface, creating works that move between botanical form and abstraction.

Drawing on her Gondwanan Biochromes developed during her Artist-in-Residence at Binna Burra, Renata will reflect on the cycles of life, decay, transformation and renewal embedded within the biochrome process. Her work invites us into the space between seeing and knowing — to pause, look differently, and discover what may be hidden within an image.

Andrea Moser works with encaustic wax, fine-liner drawings and metal to explore natural lifecycles, survival, continuity and human legacy. Her Legacy Portrait series maps a life across nine chapters, considering what we carry forward and what we leave for future generations. Her work draws connections between the rhythms of nature and the human experience of adaptation, memory and generational continuity.

Together, the artists will share their different approaches to working with materials, time and natural processes, and explore how art can open new ways of seeing our relationship with the living world — and our place within its ongoing cycles of change and renewal.

Sunday 15 November 2026, 2pm
FGS Chung Tian Temple Exhibition Hall, 1034 Underwood Rd, Priestdale QLD

Presented in conjunction with Between Space and Abstraction and AELA’s 2026 Earth Arts Kinship program.

Exhibition Opening

The exhibition officially opened at FGS Chung Tian Temple on 26 September 2026, with almost 100 guests gathering for the opening ceremony and celebrating Australia–Taiwan cultural exchange.

The afternoon included an official ribbon-cutting ceremony, speeches from representatives of government and the Temple, and opportunities to meet the participating artists and community members.

It was especially meaningful to share the story behind my Binna Burra biochromes and the natural processes through which the works have emerged, and to see the exhibition come to life within this beautiful Temple setting.

Photo: Yumiko Kigoshi
Five people in front of a wall with large vertical art hangings, a woman on the left speaking at the lectern

Biochrome Textiles

My Gondwanan Biochromes explore the space between seeing and knowing. Developed during my artist residency at Binna Burra Cultural Landscape, within the rainforest of Lamington National Park, the works emerge through a collaboration between rainforest plants, analogue photographic materials and natural processes over extended periods.

The resulting images move between representation and abstraction, transforming botanical forms into luminous landscapes that may evoke geological formations, flowing water or microscopic worlds. The work speaks a visual language before revealing its botanical origins, inviting viewers to pause, look closely and question what they are seeing.

As the plants gradually reveal themselves, curiosity becomes a pathway to connection. The works encourage moments of presence and wonder, inviting reflection on our relationship with the living world, place and the environments we create around us.

Created through the interaction of time, organic matter and microbial activity, each biochrome records transformation, bringing together art, observation and natural processes.

Artist-in-Residence at the Binna Burra Cultural Landscape*

Immersed in the rainforest, I drew inspiration from Gondwanan lineage plants and worked with their forms and qualities through the biochrome process. I collaborated with local palaeobotanist Dr Ray Carpenter, who remarked:

 “… nowhere else on Earth is there such a rich representation of vegetation with links to ancient Gondwanan floras …”

The biochrome images emerge through a collaboration between plant material, photographic materials and natural processes, with each work shaped by transformation over time.

Together, the works invite us to pause and consider our place within the rhythms of the living world and the unique ecological heritage preserved within these landscapes.

*Binna Burra is located in the Scenic Rim, nestled within the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, at Woonoongoora (Lamington National Park), Yugambeh region.

 

In her essay Time, Transition and Transformation: Renata Buziak’s Gondwanan Biochromes Dr Lisa Chandler wrote:

“Renata Buziak’s intriguing biochrome images take us on a metaphorical journey into the Gondwana rainforests surrounding Binna Burra – a rich environment containing plants with lineages that can be traced back to the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. Buziak’s work provides a fresh perspective on this complex ecosystem, helping us distinguish and learn about individual plants, and revealing their connection to a wider ecology and its ongoing cycles of growth and decay that stretch back over 50 million years – before the continents of Australia and South America separated from Antarctica. But perhaps what is most surprising about Buziak’s biochromes is that the plants themselves are vital collaborators in the creation of these fascinating images.”

(L. Chandler, Art. Nature. Science. at Binna Burra, 2022).

Gondwanan Biochromes Online

You can view most of the works in this exhibition in my Portfolio page: Gondwanan Biochromes.

Six works are currently exhibited at the Temple, with selected works also available through my online Store.

I look forward to seeing you at the exhibition, or connecting with you online. I’ll be sharing updates, images and videos during the exhibition on my social media, so please follow along.

 

Images on this page:

Banner image: Fragments of biochrome textiles.

Centre images:

  • Exhibition Poster
  • Five textiles featuring Rainforest plants, including Gondwanan lineage flora, by Renata Buziak. Images from left to right, textiles – prints on Deluxe Satin Chiffon, 2022:
    – Rough Tree Fern (Cyathea australis) Stings Remedy, 97 x 64cm, 1/3
    – Grass Tree (Xanthorrhoea sp.) Resin, 197 x 64cm, 1/3
    – Yellow Carabeen (Sloanea woollsii) long-lived, 197 x 85cm, 1/3
    – Staghorn fern (Platycerium superbum) Forest, 197 x 85cm, 1/3
    – Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei) Gondwanan Family Fossil, 197 x 90cm, 1/3