Kathleen Buzzacott / Desert Daisies (Wildflowers Series) (KB381)

Kathleen Buzzacott is an artist, poet and designer of Pitjantjatjara, Scottish and English heritage. She was born in Alice Springs, Central Australia, in 1970. Her mother’s Country, known as the Pitlands, extends across the borders of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Kathleen’s language groups are Pitjantjatjara and Western Aranda.

During her early childhood, Kathleen moved to Queensland with her father, brother and sister. At the age of ten, the three children returned to Central Australia to live with their mother at Hermannsburg.

Kathleen has painted for many years alongside her sister Julie-Anne Paige, an accomplished artist and designer particularly recognised for her Aboriginal fabric designs and other creative work.

Much of Kathleen’s art is inspired by her memories of growing up in Central Australia. Her paintings tell stories of family life, bush trips, hunting and gathering, children playing, swimming in waterholes and the everyday experiences that shaped her childhood. These warm and often joyful recollections continue to form an important part of her work.

Kathleen is also well known for her finely detailed paintings of Central Australian birds and wildlife, including cockatoos, galahs, owls, budgerigars, zebra finches and fairy-wrens. In more recent work she has expanded her subject matter to include landscapes of the West MacDonnell Ranges, the Country surrounding her home, and a new series inspired by the wildflowers of Central Australia. Featuring flowers such as Mulla Mulla, Poached Egg Daisies, Billy Buttons, Desert Daisies and Sturt’s Desert Pea, these works celebrate the colour and beauty that can emerge across the desert landscape after seasonal rain.

Her distinctive style combines finely worked dot painting with carefully observed figurative imagery, bringing together landscape, wildlife, plants and personal stories of life in Central Australia.

Beyond painting, Kathleen has worked across a range of creative mediums. She developed a popular range of Aboriginal jewellery incorporating natural seeds into contemporary designs and has collaborated with Australian companies on giftware, homewares, clothing and other products featuring her artwork.

Kathleen lives with her husband and two sons at Iwupataka, west of Alice Springs, on her husband’s traditional land.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2025 – Soft Country, The Roastery, Alice Springs
• 2024 – Scenes of Country, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2024 – ICONIC, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2023 – Central Desert Showcase, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2019 – Exhibition of Aboriginal Art, Maliyaa Aboriginal Art Gallery, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• 2015 – Lasting Expressions, with Reg Dodd and Lyn Hovey, Olive Pink Botanical Gardens, Alice Springs

SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS & ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2024 – Finalist, National Contemporary Art Prize, Canberra
• 2022 – Artwork featured on the cover of the Western Arrarnta Dictionary
• 2021 – Designs for Better World Arts, including aprons, tea towels and bags
• 2021 – Designs for Bulurru homewares and clothing
• 2017 – Kathleen Buzzacott Art Studio, Best Design Tourism Award
• 2017 – Designs released by Koh Living across coffee cups, canisters and candles
• 2016 – Designs featured in Koh Living’s Dreamtime Collection
• 2014 – Artwork selected for AAT Kings coach livery in Central Australia
• 2000 – Designs featured on selected balcony partitions and in the pool area at Lasseters Hotel Casino, Alice Springs

This painting is part of Kathleen Buzzacott’s Australian Wildflowers series, inspired by the native flowers of Central Australia, the landscape in which Kathleen was born, raised and continues to live and paint.

Central Australia is often thought of for its vast red earth and rugged ranges, but after the right seasonal rains the desert can burst into flower. Seeds that have remained dormant through long dry periods begin to grow, and wildflowers appear across the plains, sand country and ranges surrounding Alice Springs. Mulla Mulla, native daisies, Billy Buttons and Sturt’s Desert Pea are among the distinctive flowers associated with this arid landscape.

In this work Kathleen celebrates the Desert Daisies, bringing the flower itself to the foreground against a richly patterned field of her characteristic dot work. The layers of colour behind the plant evoke the earth, light and changing colours of the Central Australian landscape, while the finely painted flowers and foliage capture the delicate beauty that can emerge from such a vast and seemingly harsh environment.

For Kathleen, these wildflowers are another way of painting the Country and environment that have always surrounded her and continue to inspire her work.