Touching African Daisy

Transcript

Touching african daisy by Kylie Banyard, 2024, is a painting consisting of acrylic and oil on turmeric dyed canvas measuring 1.68 m high by 1.37 m wide. This work is unframed however the sides of the canvas are dyed with turmeric and therefore appear light brown in colour.

This artwork depicts a close-up of a flowering plant containing African daisies which starts from the bottom left-hand corner of the work and angles up towards the top-right. Surrounding the plant at the top, bottom and right hand side of the plant is grassy terrain.

From just under the top right-hand corner of the work, an outstretched arm reaches down as if to pick one of the flowers, in which there are a total of ten.

The majority of colours are not realistic as shapes of orange and blue overlays have been used which changes the colour of the objects depicted in this work. The orange overlay covers the plant and the African daisies while the blue overlay covers the grassy terrain.

Three of the flowers as well as the arm are realistic in colour. These flowers have white petals, each with a pink vertical line, and a yellow centre. The arm is a light Caucasian skin tone.

In the top-left hand corner of the work, there are a group of colours positioned next to each other in a vertical orientation. These colours include red, light peach and purple, slightly overlapping each other. A dark blue line leans diagonally up towards the right. These shapes are abstract with soft edges.

The artist signs her signature and date on the canvas that wraps over the timber at the back of the work.

Kylie Banyard's practice engages with painting, photography, textiles and sculpture to explore the critical potential of the utopian imagination. Her multidisciplinary practice questions and tests how speculative and poetic encounters with place and the more than human (both contemporary and historical) can bring about other more generative and just ways of being in the world.

The biographical information in this audio description was sourced from Kylie Banyard’s artist website.