by Namini Wijedasa
It is commonly observed that money doesn’t grow on trees. But a deep-thinking Australian artist with a sharp, innovative mind would like to her audience to re-think that dictum.

Fiona Hall paints leaves on money. Why? Because plants, in her own words, have played a crucial role in the history of colonisation and the development of world economies.

"Many species have been responsible for the rapid growth of European power and wealth over the past five hundred years," the well-known artist said last week, a few days before her second exhibition in this country opened at the Paradise Road Gallery where thirty-nine works will be displayed till August 28.

"Plants have played an important part in the displacement and shifting of people. For instance, slaves were shifted from Africa to West Indies or the United States for work in sugar and cotton plantations."

"Plants, and along with them people, have been shifted across oceans, battles have been waged over them, forests razed," she continued. "But everything comes at a price, and now we are paying heavily for over-taxing the environment and for cultivating an ever-widening gap between rich and poor nations."

"Many of the once most plant resource-rich countries are now amongst the poorest on earth."

Plants are an integral part of the histories of nations. For instance, tea was an important aspect of British rule in Sri Lanka. Wars were fought for control of the spcie trade, especially black pepper and cinnammon. Tomato and potato came from nations in the Americas which are now very poor while they are being grown as profitable cash crops in European nations. In fact, there is a lot of politics behind plants. In a sense, plants have brought the world closer.

Yet, few people from Fiona’s part of the world — indeed, from anywhere in the world — are aware of the origin of plants that have crafted many of their destinies. For instance, rubber, which has bolstered the economies of many Asian nations, comes from Brazil. Sugar cane, which was an important crop in the West Indies during British rule, was from Indonesia.

"Most people in Australia, America or Europe don’t know where the plants they have in their garden or eat come from," Fiona pointed out.

A keen natural historian in addition to being an artist, Fiona has found a singular way of displaying countries and their plants in a manner which best brings out their close interconnection. She paints the leaves on currency notes using a French technique called "gouache."

The leaves are delicate reproductions in their veined beauty and are true to size. Thus, she procures sufficient currency notes (mostly from shops in Australia which sell old money) to do a leaf of a certain kind. The endemic moonamal leaf from Sri Lanka is painted on three notes of one-rupee denomination, the cinchona leaf (used in production of quinine) on two Peruvian notes and the vanilla leaf on a single Mexican note. Fiona likes details of the currency note to show through the painting.

Fiona tries to be as accurate as possible about the country of origin of a particular plant. Sometimes, however, it is difficult to say. Other times, it is common to a region. So, she chooses currency notes accordingly. For example, curry leaves which are used in many Asian countries, is painted on Indian currency.

Fiona started work on the collection presently displayed Paradise Road Gallery during a visit to Sri Lankan in 1999 when she came here as the inaugural Asialink artist-in-residence at Lunuganga, the garden estate of the eminent architect Geoffrey Bawa. The exhibition is called "Leaf Litter" and is a show of her ongoing work at Lunuganga. She also had an exhibition in 1999 of very different art.

The artist also does plants from cold climates and will be travelling to England shortly for that project. Her final collection comprises about 200 pieces. She usually keeps a list of leaves in her head and notes about their origin. Her work includes economic plants such as sugar, coffee, tea, rubber and cotton. But she also reproduces other species of plant.

In "Leaf Litter", Fiona uses species which will invoke a sense of recognition and familiarity in local viewers. Many are from Sri Lanka, harvested for her by gardeners at Lunuganga after she came across them in local botany books.

According to Fiona, "Leaf Litter" aligns the distribution of plant species with the distribution of monetary wealth. It also displays botanical connections across diverse territories, for plants, like people, have colonised where they can. Closely related species belonging to the same botanical family have evolved and adapted to wide-ranging habits. All pieces in this collection have been purchased by the National Gallery of Australia.

"Leaf Litter" is being sponsored by the Australian High Commission in association with the Lunuganga Trust.