Jo Bertini: Hortus Conclusus - The Enclosed Garden

Hortus Conclusus – the Enclosed Garden was a series of field works, paintings, drawings, sound and video installations by artist Jo Bertini.

Inspired by her time as invited ‘Artstream’ artist in residence in the Albury Region, the works reflected the landscapes, people and places of the Murray-Indi river.

Working 'en plein air' in the environment, engaging with local First Nations and rural communities, Bertini had researched and mined the local historical, scientific archives and collections. Through this research method the artworks became a form of artistic mark making, created to be read according to particular distorted and contorted perspectives of topography and geography, people, place and land.

Hortus Conclusus – the Enclosed Garden was an intricate aesthetic
of past and present local people and place infused with an immutable sense of the Australian land and identity.