Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier share a conceptual practice making artwork using textiles and sound. They create audio-visual worlds for intimate experiences, wielding personal emotions of love, friendship, sincerity, and grief.

The three textile banners that form Flower Bird Flower are made of recycled vintage tent canvas and feature unique screenprints of flowers and birds. The artworks make a nostalgic reference to camping, featuring guy ropes, timber runners, and brass plated tent poles. For Joe and Chanelle, who spent years visiting family on the Central Coast, these works tell a story of love and grief.

The bird motif in the work depicts the Australian darter, large, slim birds with extremely long, slender necks and sharp, dagger-like bills. They are sometimes called snakebirds because they often swim with their bodies submerged, leaving only their long neck visible above the water. The Darter is a bird that Chanelle sees on her morning walks and is one of her favourites. Being in nature is an integral part of Chanelle’s health management routine, seeing the cycles and behaviours of local birds brings a small joy to each morning.

The flower motif featured in the work is a ‘highway daisy’ which grows along the coastal motorways of NSW. Joe and Chanelle first encountered this daisy while stopping on the side of the road on a visit to Joe’s mum’s mobile home at Avoca Beach. The flower represents resilience and rebellion, often growing in hostile spaces (and yet it also has a sunny disposition).

The ‘highway daisy’ is a symbol used by the artists in their Farewell Tour band posters. Joe and Chanelle’s ambient psych-rock band Farewell Tour is an art project where they advocate for conversations around mortality. It is an epic love story of a band where every song is their last. A never-ending farewell tour.