Cyanotype
– artwork created by Jennifer Harrison
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Dr Jennifer Harrison has published eight poetry collections and co-edited three anthologies of Australian poetry including Motherlode, Australian Women’s Poetry 1986-2008 (Puncher & Wattmann 2009). She has received many awards including the Anne Elder Poetry Award, the NSW Women Writers Prize and the Martha Richardson Poetry Medal. Her most recent book Anywhy was published by Black Pepper, Melbourne (2018). In 2020, she co-edited Australian Poetry Journal Volume 9, Issue 2, DIS—, an anthology of Australian poetry reflecting experience of disability. Jennifer was honoured with the 2012 Christopher Brennan Award for sustained achievement in Australian poetry. Jennifer is a neurodevelopmental child psychiatrist working at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. She holds honorary fellowships at Monash University, University of Melbourne, and the Dax Centre. In 2011 she founded and continues to manage The Dax Poetry Collection at The Dax Centre, which is situated at University of Melbourne and houses the national collection of art created by people who have experience of mental illness or psychological trauma.
Reflection by Jennifer Harrison
Cyanotype
During our extensive lockdowns this year in Melbourne, Australia, I explored the artform of cyanotype as a new way of communing with nature, particularly the foliage and flowers of my own garden. This immersion in cyanotype making – its precise chemical process, yet imperfect and unpredictable results, the flaws in the resulting images, the marking power of sunlight, the inevitable blueness of the background imagery, always full of subtle, unexpected details and graduations of spectrum – brought home to me how nascent creativity thrives in adverse circumstances and lends to the spirit both expressivity and resilience in the face of world fragility. I love the fact that the flowers are disconnected from stems in this image, as if floating, waiting for what might happen next.
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