Sebastian Di Mauro – Garden @ QUT

Showing at the QUT Art Museum from 14 March – 3 May 2015, the Garden exhibition explored the historic notion of gardens, featuring works from the Museum’s collection along with recent works borrowed from artists. The exhibition was inspired by Voltaire’s character, Candide, who comes to the conclusion that gardens must be cultivated. Garden brought together a selection of artwork drawing out the aesthetic, conceptual and therapeutic possibilities of the garden and explored why this reoccurring motif provides such a rich source of material for artists and their creative energies.

In developing his artwork, Gardino Italiano, 2015, Sebastian Di Mauro drew on memories of his family and his cultural heritage:

“Italy, my homeland, is renowned for its gardens. The Italian Renaissance saw the creation of a new type of garden design, which echoed formal and classical ideals of order, symmetry and grandeur. My family immigrated to Australia with gardens embedded in their psyche. Soon after they settled in far north Queensland they created a vegetable garden and grew what were then considered exotic plants. As a young person I maintained the lawns around our magnificent edible garden. Many patterns were ‘clipped’ into the ever-verdant lawn as I toiled. My artwork reflects on this experience and utilises wry humour to provoke and encourage dialogue and discussion around these issues. This work hopefully contributes to our embrace of diversity and to our understanding of Australian identity, culture and history.”

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