WORKS of art created in the wake of the devastating Mirboo North storm in February last year by local artist Karen Zipkas, are being displayed in one of Australia’s most prestigious exhibitions in the ‘Hatched: National Graduate Show’ at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). 

Karen Zipkas, is a Federation University Australia visual arts student, and one of just 23 artists from across the country invited to exhibit.

Karen’s work documents the destruction of a beloved local forest and explores ‘solastalgia’: a term describing the distress caused by ecological loss from climate change.

In an attempt to process her grief, Karen modified a box trailer into a large mobile camera obscura and towed it to storm-damaged forest areas in Mirboo North. From inside the moving camera obscura, she filmed the stripped forests, creating blurred and inverted scenes. In the darkness of the closed obscura, she painted the reflected images onto a continuous paper scroll and later documented them digitally.

“This became a meditative and healing experience, allowing me to process the overwhelm of a destroyed and beloved landscape,” Karen said. “Being immersed in near total darkness, the mark making and paint strokes over the reflected image were intuitive and abstract, almost as if attempting to stroke the devastated landscape back to life.”

Her exhibition also features expressionist large-scale mixed media drawings of flensed and upended trees, along with sculptures made of glass, concrete and steel that respond to the pressures of capitalist expansion and urbanisation.

“In a nation where deep love of environment is embedded in our cultural psyche, I hope these works resonate with the audience, triggering a pause to reflect on what it might feel like living in a world utterly devoid of nature,” Karen said.

Karen described being selected for Hatched as “extremely gratifying” and credited the support of her lecturer, Julie Reed Henderson, as integral to the experience. She also spoke about the confidence gained from discussing her work with visitors and designing family activities based on her art.

Federation University Arts Academy Director, Professor Rick Chew, said the University was incredibly proud of her achievements. “The Hatched show is one of the most prestigious platforms for emerging artists across the country and Karen’s selection is a testament to her dedication to this body of work and her studies,” he said.

Now in its 34th year, Hatched showcases the next generation of Australian contemporary artists, covering mediums such as painting, ceramics, drawing, woodwork, printmaking, textiles, metalwork, photography, performance, video, sound and sculpture.

This year’s exhibition is being held for the first time at an offsite venue in the heart of Perth’s CBD, with a light-filled space at Forrest Chase donated by ISPT. The show features works addressing themes such as resistance and transformation, environmental impermanence, performative identities and data and surveillance.

Karen’s work will travel home to Gippsland later this year, with a showing at Latrobe Regional Gallery from late October 2025.