Freya Maclaren is an artist and gardener living and working on the lands of the Dja Dja Warrung in Central Victoria. She creates intricate and detailed botanical illustrations in ballpoint pen combining a delicate realism with the complexity of botanic specimens.
Her work is concerned with the fragility of existence, the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of adversity.
In the garden Freya is captivated by the intricate beauty of plants as they journey and transform through their life cycle; from germination, bloom, reproduction, dispersal, and eventual decay. Her works, capturing plant specimens in variying life stages speak to the transience and impermanence that defines all life.
When collecting specimens Freya is drawn to the humble, imperfect and overlooked. She seeks the artistry in the ordinary, rejecting the easy beauty of perfection and acknowledging that true beauty often exists alongside struggle and hardship.
About
Who are you? My name is Freya Maclaren. I am 43. I live in the Wombat State Forest, an hour north of Melbourne, Victoria. I am an artist, a gardener, an occasional hospitality nightingale. I am a mother of four.
What do you create? In my art practice, I focus on drawing botanical specimens in a realist style. I use perspective and graphic composition to elevate the subject. Often I draw plant specimens which are flawed or imperfect. I think they are more interesting.
What are your drawings about? I am inspired by my own life and experience as a woman, mother, artist and gardener.
Personally I have found great solace in observing the lives of plants; in the garden I watch the cyclical, interconnected and fleeting nature of life play out before me and feel a sense of peace. I am reassured by life’s unrelenting drive to keep living. The act of observing and drawing has become a tool for understanding and in my work I hope to honour and share my love of the natural world.
While I work I find myself thinking about the relative and deceptive relationship of fragility to strength, the unique to the ubiquitous, the idolised to the forgotten. My work is informed by the philosophical notion of difficult beauty, as an artist I am interested in the role of artistic choice in understanding what is considered beautiful, valued and memorialised in society.
How do you make the work? I draw from photographs, usually I have taken them but not always. To ensure accuracy I begin with a lighbox, and finish with a magnifier.
My favourite pen is the Hauser 0.5, which I find at Japanese bargain store, Daiso. Ballpoint pen is a challenging medium- it can blot, smudge, flow unpredictably and is permanent. Every mark must be incorporated and ultimately accepted. As in life there is no ‘going back’, no absolute control over the outcome. I like this.
My creative process often involves more looking and pondering than the actual act of drawing itself. The amount of time a drawing takes to complete varies, a large drawing can take up to a month.
How long have you been making it? I began drawing botanic subjects during the 2020 pandemic.
In 2022 I exhibited my first works and in 2023 I had two small local solo shows A Single Stem (The Cosmopolitan, Trentham) and Adaptation, Selection, Survival (Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space).