There are more than 12 000 species of wild flowers identified in Western Australia and 60 % of these are endemic to WA. From about June onwards we are surrounded by beautiful wild flowers in parks, home gardens and bushland.
These amazing botanical works are created by Philippa Nikulinsky AM, an internationally recognized botanical and wildlife artist. She is currently exhibiting works from the 1970s until now in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia.
Philippa Nikulinsky has traveled throughout Western Australia for more than 50 years recording, drawing and painting its natural history.
Nikulinsky also designed artworks for the Australian Fine China Company for their crockery.
For many years. Nikulinsky illustrated the cover of the Landscope Magazine, which focuses on conservation, wildlife and parks. There were copies of many of these illustrations as part of the exhibition and they were fabulous!
In 2016, she was awarded an AM in the general order of Australian awards for “significant service to the visual arts as a botanical painter and illustrator, to professional organizations and as a painter.”
At the bottom of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery gallery stairs, just before the Sunken Garden, are these wildflowers, all blooming. This bottlebrush is one of many forms of this plant.
These pretty blooms are Hakea laurina.
One of hundreds of types of Grevillea.
Today is the 21st of June, the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, so it will be the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Of course, it is the reverse in the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice.