Voyagers' Tales: Louis de Freycinet
Beaver Galleries, Deakin 2024
The paintings in this exhibition were inspired by the collection of engravings made to document the French scientific voyage commanded by Louis de Freycinet.
After leaving France in 1817 aboard the corvette Uranie, Freycinet sailed to Rio de Janerio where expedition scientists gathered specimens and information concerning the natural history, geology, astronomy, geography and habitants of the region. For the next three years the expedition continued this pattern of research exploring the Pacific Ocean. The locations they visited included South America, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor, the Philippines, the Mariana and Hawaiian Islands. In 1820 on the return leg of the voyage the Uranie was wrecked in the shores of the Falkland Islands. A replacement vessel was obtained and Freycinet returned to France with extensive collections of natural history specimens and voluminous notes and drawings of the countries visited. These voyage records were published under Freycinet's supervision, with the title of Voyage autour du monde fait par ordre du Roi sur les corvettes de S. M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, in 13 quarto volumes and 4 folio volumes of plates and maps.
I have had the pleasure of looking this publication which is included in the collection of the National Library of Australia. As well as engravings of plants and animals there are detailed images of many of locations they visited. These fascinating images convey information about the housing, dress, pastimes and cultural practices of the many different people they encountered as well as their surrounding landscape. The images reveal the voyagers' deep curiosity and respect for the natural world and peoples they encountered, who in turn engaged openly.
My aim in making these paintings has been to convey this spirit of curiosity and deference shown all parties involved in this cosmopolitan expedition. I developed several strategies to achieve this including combining details from some of the Atlas images of birds or localities with patterning and the utilisation of axes of symmetry to create novel botanical forms. Some patterns I have used were inspired by those produced by Pacific Islanders, others were derived from contemporary fabrics. The melange of different patterns and imagery is a way for me to refer to my response as a person living in the present to these various past encounters between peoples and place that occurred during this voyage.
A selection of oil on panel small works, 20 x 20 cm
Multi-panel work from my 2024 Voyagers’ Tales- Louis de Freycinet exhibition at Beaver Galleries Canberra. These oil on linen paintings depict various sites of encounter between the de Freycinet expedition Voyagers, people and animal species.