Kate Ballis and Tom Blachford, Alpha Leonis, 2022. Pigment print on cotton rag, 150 x 120cm, edition of 8. Courtesy: the artists and Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

In a world where scientific truth can erase the divine, creative and life partners Kate Ballis and Tom Blachford recapture the magic with their first collaborative photographic series Influorescence. The pair reach to the cosmos for inspiration with large scale, iridescent, blooming bodies that burst from deep space. Floral satellites transform into supernovas, or planets among a nebula of stardust. So visceral is the interwoven carapace of petals that you could step forward and be engulfed by the imagery. Suspended in darkness, the sensual subjects appear to rotate in a vortex akin to gravitational orbit. When surrounded by these images, you are transported, the familiar and the alien colliding into a flowering galaxy.

Together, Ballis and Blachford express ideas which go beyond the everyday notions of photography. In Influorescence, their worlds merge and the ever-expanding universe is caught within a bloom, fluorescing pollen exploding forth from the darkness. What lies beyond human perception is unleashed through Influorescence.

Opening Event: Saturday 11 November, 2 – 4pm.