Criss Canning

Criss Canning is one of Australia's finest painters of still life, her enthralment with beauty finding a natural outlet in the imagery of flowers. Extraordinary in their botanical accuracy, they flirt with exactitude, yet embrace the aesthetic rather than the scientific. For Canning's colour-laden brush, science is the handmaiden of art. Her artistic journey from the naturalism of captured moments of feminine enchantment to the boldly minimalist celebrations of colour in her latest works is the subject of this book. As enchanting as any fictional tale of romance is her life at Burnside, in central Victoria, where environment, flowers, lover and art come together as one beautiful whole. David Thomas was born in the Garden City of Ballarat and grew up surrounded by flowers. In later years, as the inaugural director of Carrick Hill in Adelaide, he combined his love of art and flowers in the development of this magnificent bequest to the people of South Australia. In writing on the art of Criss Canning, he has once again indulged in this joint love, exploring the beauty to be found in the creativity of one of Australia's most gifted painters of still life. In addition to books on Rupert Bunny and Andrew Sibley, David Thomas writes widely on Australian art, contributing articles to numerous publications, essays for art auction and exhibition catalogues, as well as entries on Australian artists, colonial to contemporary, for the German international art dictionary, 'Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon'.