Mother – an Artist Book
There is beauty in all stages of life.
And in death too.
My most recent artist book, Mother, celebrates the ancient matriarch standing strong in the paddock behind my studio – albeit in skeletal form.
I have no real sense of how tall she is.
I can only guess her age.
When I stand near to her trunk, it feels impossibly wide, the bark slowly sagging under the weight of gravity and years. She stands grounded and steady, surrounded by her children and her children’s children. A quiet dynasty rising around her … trees, habitat, life.
This year has been a generous cone season. For the past 18 months, after a prolific seeding across the local bunya trees, we’ve waited for the tumbling thud of heavy cones hitting the earth.
Each cone holds nourishment.
Each one holds forest.
Mother
Mother holds the forest floor
Branches climbing
Carving circles to the sky
Cradling memory in her roots
Naked, she stands
Surrounded and protected
Sheltered by her own
Her legacy grown close
On their prickly arms
Green armoured cones emerge
Branches bend with anticipation
Holding forests yet to grow
Heavy with hope
We wait for the tumbling thud
Cones crash to the forest floor
Bunya seedlings start to grow
Mother is an artist book about relationship and place. The striking candelabra-shaped skeleton-tree* stands as an icon in a shared landscape where a small habitat sustains life. The grove holds soil, cones, seedlings, birds, insects and the quiet work of regeneration. Mother asks you to notice what a tree leaves behind, what a grove carries together, and what care can protect for future generations.
This book is both tribute and witness. To strength. To endurance. To hope falling heavily and beginning again. To these iconic giants surviving the pathogenic dieback currently attacking their roots.
*Mother is, essentially, a dead tree. Her exact age is unknown. I can only estimate somewhere between 100 and perhaps 400 years. It’s impossible to know for certain. The width of her trunk and the way it has weathered suggest centuries of standing. It pains me to say it, but I find her skeletal form strikingly beautiful – like a grand natural sculpture presiding over the landscape she once thrived in. I have assumed that she died from dieback caused by the soil-borne pathogen Phytophthora. Here’s hoping that her children have the root-strength to withstand the pathogen and grow to the size and age of their mother.
Below are a few of the photos stitched behind the floating text pages. The images show the bunya trees and habitat surrounding Mother, taken with my drone. It is very difficult to see the cones growing high in the giant bunya’s canopy from the ground. Sending the drone up offered a special opportunity to see how the cones sit cradled in their branches.
Here is a closer look at some bunya cones. These are ones I collected a few weeks ago, to harvest the nuts. Bunya cones can range in weight from 3kg-10kg. It has been a great year for collecting and sharing cones, with many large cones found around the base of trees, full of nuts.
Note that this is NOT a good time to walk or park under bunya trees!
This is the first year I’ve cooked bunya nuts for myself. After removing the husks from the seed, I boil them in salty water for 30-60 minutes, then split the shell open to reveal the nuts. Some I’ve been munching, others are frozen, ready to add to cooking and mill into flour.
Colophon
Poem – words by Kim Herringe
Papers
Central trees – lasercut Somerset Velvet Black 300gsm with magnet fasteners
Images – Somerset Velvet 330gsm, pigment inkjet print
Text – Hosho, waxed, handwritten
Structure
Concertina with pamphlet stitching and magnet fasteners
Edition Size – 1
Completed February 2026
Beyond Bunya Symposium and Connected to Bunya Country Art Exhibition
The book will be on display at The Little Red Cottage, Maleny, as part of the Connected to Bunya Country art exhibition, 19 February – 12 March 2026. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Beyond Bunya Dieback Symposium. I also created the artist book “silent relics: a family album” artist book for the Beyond Bunya Dieback exhibition in March 2025.
The Beyond Bunya Dieback Symposium, held on Jinibara Country in Maleny, brings together Traditional Custodians, researchers, soil scientists, conservationists and community members for a day of shared learning and connection. It’s a space where culture, science and lived experience meet – where conversations about our native species, dieback and ecosystem health extend from the local landscape to global perspectives. The symposium fosters practical, collaborative approaches to caring for Country and supporting the well-being of these iconic forests.
Symposium date – Friday 27 February 2026
Location – Maleny Community Centre, Maleny
Tickets – via Humanitix here
The Connected to Bunya Country art exhibition officially opens on Saturday, 21 February at The Little Red Cottage. It will run until 14 March, featuring work from a large collection of local and beyond artists passionate about the care and protection of our ecosystems.
Exhibition dates – Friday 19 February – Saturday 14 March 2026 (closed Sundays and Mondays)
Location – The Little Red Cottage/Forest Heart ecoNursery, 20 Coral Street, Maleny
Opening Event – Saturday 21 February 3-5pm – all welcome
