Palms of North Queensland

These paintings are the result of Lucy’s two-year Masters of Creative Arts degree, which she undertook at James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, Australia (1997-99). Having spent time working with palm botanist Dr John Dowe, she decided to depict all of the native palms in the North Queensland region. In total, she illustrated 18 of the species, showing them in their natural habitats. Many of the palms had not been illustrated in this way before. Lucy wanted to show the importance of their position, often as a dominant species, in very specific vegetation types and ecological niches.

All images (c) copyright Lucy T Smith