Deborah has spent many years living amongst the wild buttongrass plains and deep rainforests of Tasmania, collecting specimens (sustainably and with permissions) to inspire her art and design creations.
Her specimen collection has grown over the years into a significant archive of immense beauty forming a unique record of Tasmania’s botanical heritage, including many threatened and endangered species.
Deborah is exploring fashion and fabric design to bring awareness to important cross cultural, historical and conservation issues.
She is a graduate from Canberra School of Arts (1988) with a Bachelor Degree in Visual Arts, Printmaking.
You are invited to learn more about the environment, methods, and artworks. Look closer…
Deborah was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, Australia’s most prestigious international research scholarship.
This enabled her to travel to Europe to access herbarium materials from some of the first western scientific expeditions to Tasmania.
She explored botanical specimens and print collections located in Paris, Florence, Le Havre and Kew, and from the d’Entrecasteaux and Baudin expeditions to Tasmania. Her experience is reflected in her contemporary cultural motifs and Australian designs.
Deborah’s style is influenced by the botanical collections of the 1792 French d’Entrecasteaux Scientific Expedition to southern Tasmania, including naturalist JJH Labillardiere who authored Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen – the first published work on the flora of Australia.
She explores the wild botany of Tasmania, maintaining an extensive pressed plant herbarium and a plant print collection, digitised to create innovative contemporary Australian designs for fashion and architectural canvasses.
Tasmania is a botanical paradise. It harbours strange species from the Jurassic era, and deep rainforests which contain some of the world’s oldest and largest living plants.
Deborah’s art is deeply entrenched in this botany: precious and threatened native orchids, wild buttongrass plant communities and deep rainforests.
She transforms them into gorgeous works of art on paper and beautiful silks, chiffon and linen.
Beginning with her involvement in the successful campaign to protect the historic and wild Recherche Bay in far south Tasmania – where the first French expeditions set their base – Deborah actively campaigns for the conservation and appreciation of wild botanical sites.
Deborah works with ecology scientists, enthusiasts, activists and artists. She volunteers at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens with the Orchid Conservation program. Helping with the laboratory germination, growth and nurturing of endangered species, this ensures the rejuvenation and ongoing liability of these significant plant species in the wild.
Cinematographer Michael Gissing created ‘Threatened Species Dance’ for me, which is a mesmerizing slow motion dance featuring my Tasmanian plant designs set to the incredible music of Linsey Pollak & Lizzie O’Keefe.
Botanical artist Deborah Wace designed and produced a bespoke artwork which features on the underside of the lid of the Van Diemen’s Band’s harpsichord, which was officially launched in Hobart on 21 August 2023.
See behind the scenes of the photo shoot at Boronia Beach and my collaboration with renowned Tasmanian-based filmmakers.
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A fabric designer, ecological activist, plant advocate and professional printmaker from Hobart, Tasmania.
Deborah WACE acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and the traditional custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work
