Christine Johnson
As above, so below April 5 - May 4 2025
Christine Johnson
As Above, So Below.
These artworks are inspired by the legacy of the Mallee botanist Hilda Eileen Ramsay (18861961). Her story resonates with me because of the courageous and creative way in which she lived her own life after the tragic loss of her two brothers, Alan and Tom Couve, who were killed at Gallipoli in 1915. The Couve family didn’t know of any details of their deaths for several years. Four of Hearts and The Blue Notebook are paintings of ephemera in the Australian War Memorial that hold some of that history.
After the war, Eileen moved to the Mallee with her parents where her father, Joson Couve, opened a pharmacy to help returning soldiers in the new soldier settlement. This was where, in later life, Eileen began creating her botanical collection.
I saw the collection for the first time at the Mildura Arts Centre in 2015. (It is now held at the National Herbarium of Victoria). With the help of local plant enthusiasts, I was shown the mysteries of the Mallee landscape and its beguiling flora. Together we set about finding Eileen Ramsay’s plants in the remnant native landscape, and this is how the drawings for HER Story began.
You get a sense of deep layers of time in the Mallee. The only lifeline is the Murray River winding through the harsh semi-arid desert, leaving pools and billabongs behind after heavy and often erratic seasonal flooding. My painting, Terra Madre, is painted from a bend in the Murray River at Red Cliffs, near where Eileen Ramsay lived.
The two coastal paintings, Terra Aria and Terra Aqua, are dedicated to the memory of Eileen’s father. Joson Couve was French-Mauritian and came to Australia on a sugar ship, the Lindores Abbey, which passed through the heads at Point Nepean on 1 April, 1883, leaving behind forever the turquoise water and coral sands of the Isle de France as Mauritius was once known. Joson died in 1930 and is buried at the Red Cliffs Pioneer Cemetery.
The title of the exhibition, As Above, So Below is an extract from a Hermetic text:
“As within, so without, as above, so below, as the universe, so the soul.”
Sales:
Julie Collins - Director gallery@djprojects.net
0417324 795
Free Delivery and Installation within Victoria
Shipping arranged interstate and Overseas.
21 Morce Ave Sorrento, Victoria, Australia
www.andgalleryaustralia.net & Gallery is part of the djprojects family of art related businesses. www.djprojects.net
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
1. Mallee Fowl feather
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
2. White Cypress Pine
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing. Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
3. Umbrella Wattle I
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing. Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
4. Umbrella Wattle II
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing. Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
5. Bush Banana
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
6. Spotted Emu Bush
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
7. Pink Mullah mullah
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
8. Wilga
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
9. Silver Cassia
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
10. Hattah Lily
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
11. Wheel Fruit
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing. Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
12. Cactus Bossiaea
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing.
Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
13. Salt Bush
14. Golden Everlasting
Archival pigment print assembled from pastel drawing. Edition of 5, 74 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
The Troopships of ANZAC, a poem by Eileen Ramsay
15. Coastline, Turkey. Pastel on paper, 112 x 82 cm (framed) $ 4,500
16. Red Cliffs on the Murray River, Victoria. Pastel on paper, 112 x 82 cm (framed) $4500
17. Four of Hearts, 2025
Oil on linen
140 x 112cm
$12,000
$12,000
18. The Blue Notebook, 2025
Oil on linen
140 x 112cm
19. For Frank Cahir, Five Soldiers, 2019
Solar plate engraving and archival pigment print.
64 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
20. For Alan Couve, Five Soldiers, 2109
Solar plate engraving and archival pigment print.
64 x 59 cm (framed)
$1,800
$28,000
21. Terra Aria , 2025
Oil on linen
160 x 350 cm
$28,000
22. Terra Madre, 2025
Oil on linen
160 x 350 cm
$28,000
23. Terra Aqua, 2025
Oil on linen
160 x 350 cm
Christine Johnson - C.V.
Christine Johnson was born in Melbourne in 1959. Since her first solo exhibition of paintings in Melbourne in 1989, Christine has had numerous exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth. She currently combines an interest in historical narratives and native flora, exploring ideas through painting, drawing and printmaking and adapting these traditional forms into public art, sound and installation works. She works at her home studio in Melbourne.
Her artworks are held in the public collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, State Library of Victoria, National Library of Australia, Monash University Collection, University of Queensland, Artbank and Victorian regional art galleries including Ballarat, Mildura, Benalla and Hamilton. Christine’s paintings can also be seen in Melbourne at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Park Hyatt Hotel and Crown Promenade Hotel.
Christine’s work featured in the Print Portfolio for Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2023. Other recent exhibitions include Field at Workspace 3496 in Red Cliffs, Victoria, Species at Risk, at The Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney, finalist in the Gallipoli Prize in Sydney and a solo exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Mallee botanist, HER Story, Hilda Eileen Ramsay at the Print Council of Australia Gallery, Southbank. In 2022 Christine worked with Hassell Studio architects creating perforated metal artworks for a public laneway development. The imagery for the artworks is based on native medicinal plants and nature’s DNA coding. The artworks celebrate the botanical legacy of Eileen Ramsay. In 2021 Christine was awarded a Print Council of Australia commission with her print, Saltbush. Also exhibiting in 2021 at Mildura Arts Centre in The Mallee On The Map and Soundscape and Landscape, a poetic multi-media installation in the old ballroom at Rio Vista House. In 2019, Christine was commissioned by the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University to create Five Soldiers, a remembrance project dedicated to five former students of the College of Pharmacy who tragically lost their lives in World War One. The project was awarded the Grand Gold Award at the CASE awards in Washington in 2020. Her print from the series, For Frank Cahir was selected for the 2021 Geelong Acquisitive Print Prize Exhibition.
Prior to this Christine was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the State Library of Victoria and undertook research on early Australian botanical art. The result of this extensive research is the touring exhibition, Voyages Botanical. It includes 30 solar-plate engravings and related drawings and paintings. The exhibition was launched in December 2014 at the Alliance Française, Melbourne and concluded at Albury Regional Gallery in January 2019. During this time Christine presented talks about her work at Mueller Hall - National Herbarium of Victoria, Melbourne University, the Alexandra Club, Wangaratta Art Gallery, Bribie Island Museum and Blue Mountains Cultural Centre and taught Cyanotype workshops at Bribie Island, Wangaratta, Mildura Arts Centre and at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Melbourne.
Selected solo exhibitions:
2025 As Above, So Below, & Gallery, Victoria
2023 HER Story, Print Council of Australia, Southbank, MelbourneField: Ephemera,Workspace
3496, Red Cliffs, Victoria
2021 Soundscape and Landscape, Mildura Arts Centre, Victoria
2018 Firmament, Fox Galleries, Collingwood, Melbourne
2017 Inland, The Art Vault, Mildura, Victoria
2014 -19 Voyages Botanical Touring Exhibition
2017 Florae, Fox Galleries, Collingwood, Melbourne
2016 Inland, Port Jackson Press
2011 Indigene, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne
The Botany of Beauty, Greenhill Galleries, Perth
2010 Halation, BMG, Adelaide
Afterglow, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney
2009 Hothouse, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2008 Arabesque, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney
2006 Other Echoes, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney
2005 Sub Rosa, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2004 Spira Mirabilis, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney
Selected Group exhibitions:
2023 Melbourne Now, Print Portfolio, National Gallery of Victoria
2022 Baldessin Studio, The Legacy, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2021 The Mallee on The Map, Mildura Arts Centre
2019-2020 Return; The Way Back Home, Matheson Library, Monash University
2019 Baldessin Studio – The Story, Montsalvat, Victoria
Layers of Settlement, The Art Vault, Mildura, Victoria
2015 Arkley (and friends…) Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Victoria
2014 Mirror of the World, State Library of Victoria
Public Collections:
National Gallery of Victoria
State Library of Victoria
National Library of Australia
Monash University, Clayton, Victoria
Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Parkville
Print Council of Australia
University of Queensland
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne
Artbank
Regional Galleries including Art Gallery of Ballarat, Mildura Arts Centre, Benalla Art Gallery, Hamilton Art Gallery
Park Hyatt Hotel, Melbourne
Crown Promenade Hotel, Melbourne