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Serotiny – An Artist Book About Fire, Patience, and Renewal
My idea of heaven – bushland full of banksias!
When I’m out exploring areas of bushland, I often reflect on the history and stories held within mis-shaped leaves, empty seed pods and the jagged scars on smooth eucalyptus trunks.
In particular, I think that the spent cones of Banksias are the most captivating storytellers in nature — charred by fire, twisted and deformed, and sometimes partially decayed. These cones embody serotiny, a botanical strategy where seed release is delayed until the heat of fire opens their follicles. In the blackened hush of a post-burn landscape, new life takes root.
Recently I’ve been a bit obsessed with drawing the cones of the gorgeously large Saw Banksias (Banksia serrata). Upon reflection, I recognised a parallel to my own life: resilience, adaptation, and the quiet strength that comes from waiting for the right conditions to grow. Translating that idea into book form felt like the right way to let a new artist book unfold. My art practice this year has been focussing on artist books, in particular getting out of my comfort zone to explore some more unusual book forms.
The ‘banksia pages’ are a fold out panel cut from the concertina behind.
For the structural heart of my book, I chose the panorama format from Hedi Kyle’s ‘The Art of the Fold’. Rather than simply pasting the prints into a standard concertina, the panorama’s concertina strips with pop-out panels give depth and support, letting each kozo panel stand proudly in space. My version has two concertinas joined using pamphlet stitch with orange waxed linen thread— the colour of the thread being a small but deliberate nod to the spark of fire that begins the banksia’s renewal.
The panels themselves are handmade from Japanese kozo, the fibres salvaged from another printmaker’s discarded paper offcuts. I pulped the fibre and reformed it using a mini mould without a deckle, allowing the edges to remain loose and organic—echoes of the Banksia’s own rugged textures. Onto these pieces, I printed photopolymer etchings created from my original drawings. The process uses UV light to transfer the image onto a light-sensitive plate, and my vacuum UV unit ensures the fine lines are captured with precision (assuming I get the exposure times right!).
The studio vacuum UV unit for exposing my photopolymer plates
The post-exposure process of washing out the soft parts of the emulsion to create etched lines in the plate
Proofing the plates by printing to make sure they are successful (which they were -phew!)
To complete the work, I built a custom slipcase from box board and mulberry paper. The case not only protects the vulnerable kozo edges but also reins in the panorama’s natural expansion when not on display.
The book in the slipcase, with matching banksia imagery on each side
My artist book Serotiny is as much about the physical act of making as it is about the Banksia cones themselves: a meditation on patience, transformation, and the beauty in what survives the fire.
Artwork Details
Title: Serotiny
Medium: Photopolymer Etchings on handmade kozo paper; Panaroma book format with slipcase
Year: 2025
Size Closed in Slipcase: 20cm L x 21.5cm H x 5cm D
Size installed in a row: 60cm L x 21 cm H x 15cm D
Edition: Variable Edition of 2