Over a 50-year career as an artist, I have depicted a variety of plant forms, environments and hybrid creatures that have drawn on Surrealist concepts of the forest and jungle, coupled with an interest in science (fact and Fiction), mythology, animals and the natural world.

The forest is often associated with Romantic, Gothic, Symbolist and Surrealist imagery and literature. The forest as a labyrinth has been a metaphor for human psychological states that are often mysterious and unfathomable; a key to unlocking the psyche, as discussed by both Jung and Freud, concepts that have their origins in ancient Greek Mythology. I have a love of the mythology associated with plants and strange hybrid animals. Gods, Goddesses and spirits inhabit forests, places where bizarre narratives unfold. Creatures with mysterious desires roam, creatures with supernatural powers with the ability to transform themselves and others. To metamorphosize from one form into another, always with a reason, sometimes worthy, sometimes vindictive. Many common plant names we may take for granted are named after dramatic transformations in Greek Mythology. Narcissus, transformed into a flower, Crocus, bloomed from the blood of the deceased youth Crocus. The opium poppy is the reincarnation of the lover of the goddess Demeter. It may deter one from eating salad to know that beautiful Adonis died in a bed of lettuce, a plant associated with death in ancient Greece.

In my drawings for “Plant Life,” magic, fantasy, personal myths and images of transformation and metamorphosis all merge. There is a magical place where onions have telepathic powers. I envision what plant life may exist on distant planets such as Venus, inhabited by sulphur-breathing Venusians with lemon complexions. Beneath the waves from where life originated, there is a floating figure communicating with on octopus, sharing their tendrils and tentacles amongst limpets and sea grass in the Forest of Crespo; the forest from Jules Verne’s “ Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” ( 1871) The plant with its capillary action of sap, veins, water, nutrients carry the essence of life as do veins and nerves in humans. These works show a world where reality and dreams blur and are transformed into new imaginings.

Peter Ellis is an acute observer of the natural world; his work highlights current social, political and environmental concerns while also drawing upon a vast array of historic and cultural art references.

Dada and Surrealism have been at the core of his artistic research for more than fifty years. His diverse practice includes paintings, drawings, prints, objects, multiples, and artists' books. Peter's art explores the Surrealist conception of 'the marvellous', highlighting the power of the imagination and the unconscious mind through techniques such as dream analysis and psychic automatism. Depicting an imaginative world of idiosyncratic symbolism, his imagery conjures incongruous environments inhabited by strange animals, hybrid alien creatures and metamorphosing forms. Peter has held 20 individual and two-person exhibitions, including a major survey of his drawings, A Head in a Hive of Bees (2013) at RMIT Gallery, which spanned over 40 years of his practice.

Peter Ellis has been selected for over 180 curated group exhibitions including:

Most recently, Hair Pieces, 2025, at Heide Museum of Modern Art. All the better to see you with: Fairy Tales Transformed, The Ian Potter Museum of Art at University of Melbourne, 2018. Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, (2015) NGV Australia.

He has been the recipient of many prestigious Grants, Commissions and Awards. His work is cited in over 70 published books and catalogues and 100 journals, magazine and newspaper reviews.

His work is represented in all Australian State Galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia, and many regional galleries, university and corporate collections. He is an Honorary Associate Professor, School of Art, RMIT University and lives and works in Melbourne.

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