In the cut: artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

GHOSTED: SARCOCHILUS OLIVACEUS by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

Hand Lizzie Buckmaster Dove a knife, and she turns sharp-bladed cuts into elegant swerves and floral swoops – like an act of calligraphy.

We're extremely lucky to feature the artist's gorgeous work and home in our latest issue of Inside Out. The confetti-burst of colour and imagery inside Lizzie Buckmaster Dove's Wollongong residence is just stunning.



I thought I'd also use the blog to showcase some of her incredible artwork.

What first attracted you to working with paper?
At art school, I majored in photography but very quickly was making montages with the photos I took, and then making collages that didn’t necessarily involve my own photography.

Since then, I have always been cutting and arranging paper. Only recently has that evolved into relief and three dimensions.


GHOSTED: MYRTLE ACACIA /Acacia myrtifolia by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

The papers I work with all come from books and are evocative to me. I have an affinity with the physicality of books: their texture, density, smell, as well as their immediacy, potential and the way pages move.

Can you tell me about your Ghosted artworks?
I developed the Ghosted series out of a desire to see back in time to a place before white Australians arrived.

The photographic images are of the introduced species while the plants that are cut through the papers (and appear white) are all native species. It is a ghosting of what once was before we landed on these shores and before we implemented our ordered gardens of mostly European varieties of plant.

The Ghosted series first appeared in my exhibition, 'Into The Woods', in Sydney in 2008. They were two-dimensional cut-outs in both positive and negative and were pinned directly onto the wall to form a large work.


GHOSTED: CHRISTMAS BUSH /Ceratopetalum gummiferum by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

For this year's 'An End To Myth', by way of (a happy) accident, the ghosts are not cut out completely. They are still attached to the original image so that they fall part-way out of the image. It is like they have an incredible tenacity. They are not there, they are ghosts, but they have not departed entirely. There is hope.


On Green by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

Can you tell us about On Green?
This series of works echoes the display of bird specimens collected and catalogued by museums and amateur botanists so popular during the time of the Victorians. Only half-glimpses and partial views are achieved, much as would be seen of a bird in tree or flight.

The work implies that in the act of collecting and cataloguing, we are causing the degradation of the very thing that holds our fascination.

These works suggest much has been lost by the plunder of the land by those too foolish to understand its beauty and delicate balance.



How do your kid's friends react to seeing your art all over the house? Do all the shapes, colours and intricate forms inspire them to be particularly creative too?
I can’t really comment on how my children’s friends react to my work, they are in the range of 3-7. I don’t think they have noticed especially.

My boys, however, do love the work all over the house and that I am an artist. I think it does inspire them to creative. We have framed a few of their works and they enjoy their place on the house walls.

Wilkie sees my work and asks, "Is that your artist?". Max has said when he grows up he’d like to be an artist and sit at my table with me to make his work.

They both enjoy looking at art, not just mine. They have been dragged around to galleries since they were very small. The first artist Max truly responded to was Constantin Brâncuşi, when there was a huge retrospective of his work at the Tate Modern. He was shrieking and wanting to touch the works, crawling across the floor at breakneck speed to get to plinths (much to the horror of the attendants). It was an incredible total physical reaction.


The Sky The Sky by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove

Artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove appears in our latest issue of Inside Out. To find out more about her work, contact her galleries: NG Art in Sydney and Flinders Lane in Melbourne.

Lee Tran, deputy chief sub-editor


At Once Our Vastness Is Our Limitation by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove