Carmel And The Mandevillas On The Line
Kalyanii Holden
- Sitter: Carmel Bartolini
- Medium: Photograph on Archival cotton rag
- Dimensions: 76cm x 51cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
About the artwork
Carmel Bartolini has been running Carseldine Nursery in Brisbane for five decades. During a visit to the nursery, the artist’s curiosity was captured by a Hills Hoist covered in white Mandevilla trumpet flowers instead of clothes. She decided to ask Bartolini then and there to take her portrait.
“She happened to be wearing a striped shirt, white hat and white socks and shoes. She looked so put together… The Hills Hoist is not only an Australian icon, to me it represents home, my backyard growing up in suburban Australia, family and closeness.”
For the artist, struck by the poetic tension between the domestic and the wild, the flower-covered Hills Hoist is a metaphor for beauty in everyday life, a recurring theme in her work. The black and white presentation adds a further sense of nostalgia, evoking memory, timelessness and the familiar rituals of home that often go unnoticed.
About the artist
Kalyanii Holden is a Brisbane based photographer and ceramicist whose work investigates the intersections of emotion, environment and human connection. Through observations of daily life, she also reflects on themes of identity, belonging and personal narrative. Her practice has earned national recognition, including finalist positions in the National Photographic Portrait Prize and Olive Cotton Award.
