Katherine Boland

Australia

Katherine Boland is a multidisciplinary artist based on the south eat coast of Australia. Her practice spans digital media, photography, experimental techniques and non-traditional media and processes. Across these forms, she explores the tension between beauty and vulnerability in the natural world—highlighting both its beauty, its resilience and its increasing fragility in the face of ecological disruption. Since the 2019-20 bushfires that devastated her region, Katherine's practice has become more focused on environmental themes and the realities of a warming planet. Her recent work incorporates emerging technologies to reimagine landscapes and ecosystems in ways that foster emotional connection, ecological awareness, and a deeper sense of responsibility.

In 2020, Katherine was selected to participate in OUTPUT: Art After Fire, an international pilot project funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which brought together artists from southeast Australia and the American West to respond creatively to bushfire trauma and recovery. Her work has been featured in global forums including the DigitalArt4Climate Art Award at the 2021 United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow, and Art Speaks Out exhibitions at the 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 UN Climate Conferences in Egypt, Dubai, Azerbaijan and Brazil. In 2023, her work Fire Flower No. 8—created using fire itself—was presented by the Australian Prime Minister as an official gift to President Joe Biden at the White House. Katherine has received several major Australian art prizes, including the 2023 National Capital Art Prize (Sustainability category), the 2023 Burrinja Climate Change Biennale Art Award, and the 2009 Heysen Prize for Interpretation of Place. In addition to her visual arts practice, Katherine is the author of the memoir Hippy Days, Arabian Nights (Wild Dingo Press, 2017), and holds a Graduate Diploma in Therapeutic Arts Practice from the Melbourne Institute of Experiential and Creative Art Therapies (MIECAT).


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Hybrid No. 6

Hybrid_No_6_Katherine_Boland_AI.mp4

Hybrid No. 6 brings together my photographs of Australian native flora, reimagined through the generative lens of AI. Natural forms—branches, leaves, blossoms—are mirrored, layered, and shaped into a surreal symmetry that blurs the line between organic and artificial. The work hums with a quiet tension: between wildness and control, chaos and pattern, growth and repetition.

Rooted in real places and moments, these botanical elements are transformed into strange, speculative ecologies. They suggest a future shaped as much by memory and machine as by sunlight and soil. In this sense, Hybrid No. 6 is not a documentation of the natural world, but a poetic reconstruction—alive, uncanny, and always becoming.

At its core, this work asks: what becomes of nature under the weight of human activity? How do land, plants, and ecosystems shift under the pressure of extraction, pollution, and accelerating climate change? And as digital technologies increasingly mediate our relationship with the environment, what new forms—both beautiful and unsettling—might emerge? Hybrid No. 6 is a meditation on fragility and transformation in an era shaped by both ecological crisis and technological intervention.

technique

ai

format

landscape

duration

01:24

year

2025

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More from Katherine Boland

More on digital art

Generative art
Generative art refers to a way of creating artworks using an autonomous system. In digital art, these are usually generated from code and algorithms created by the artist, often with certain predefined parameters or systems. Although these parameters guide the final outcome of the work, generative art is generally a surprising way to create artworks, as the results are often unexpected and the number of possible outcomes can be infinite.
AI
AI art is a branch of generative art that uses artificial intelligence. Unlike other generative artworks, AI artworks use specific complex algorithms and models derived from machine learning. The most common methods for creating AI art today are GANs (generative adversarial networks) or proprietary prompting platforms such as ChatGPT, Sora, Midjourney, or Dall-e.
3D
3D art uses 3D software such as Blender, Cinema4D, Houdini, or video game software such as Unity to create works of art. In 3D works, artists can either arrange assets (the 'objects' in a 3D artwork or world) that they have created themselves or purchased from other creators to create elaborate environments and scenes (an approach to 3D art called 'set dressing'), or specialize in sculpting, which involves creating their own objects and assets.
Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is a specialized 3D technique that allows 3D objects to be created from numerous photographs taken of an object or scene from multiple angles. These photos are then compiled to determine the specific positioning, shape, and dimensions of the object in space, and then converted into a 3D model. Initially developed for engineering and urban planning, photogrammetry has become a way for artists to produce extremely accurate 3D models from real-life images.
Collage
An extension of the traditional, plastic approach to collage, digital collage involves searching for and cutting out multiple images, extracting them from their original context, and recomposing them in a new arrangement to create a work of art. Artists can use their own photographs or find images on the internet.
Illustration
Digital illustrations are created using software such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or Procreate. As with drawing on paper, the artist uses a stylus to sketch a figure or object, usually on a tablet, to construct a scene or artistic universe. Unlike traditional drawing methods, digital illustration is much more forgiving, as mistakes can be easily corrected and drawn elements and objects can be easily moved around within a scene.
Video
Video artworks primarily use a recording camera, but may sometimes include additional post-processing or editing to distort, modify or add additional elements to the image. Some artists use state-of-the-art recording equipment to create macro zoom-ins or time lapses, privileging fidelity to the subject matter. Others use additional softwares to significantly modify or warp the video, creating an alternative perspective on the world that surrounds us.

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