The team at Orange Regional Gallery is currently developing an exhibition featuring work by Canberra-based artist Sammy Hawker, which will open in December. Hawker predominantly works with photography but has also recently branched out into bronze sculpture and installation work.

Hawker is a fan of traditional black-and-white film photography but mixes analogue and experimental processes. A really interesting aspect of Hawker's art practice is how she works with nature to create her artwork.

Some of the photographs in the exhibition are of landscapes connected to water, and Hawker uses water from the sites to develop the negatives. Using water from the ocean, a lake, or even hailstones leaves a visible impression within the negative. Small crosses and starbursts appear in the image, creating an intriguing and distorted view of the landscape.

Hawker has also worked alongside honeybees to create some fascinating photographs. In a series called 'Conversations with bees', Hawker photographed the landscape and then put the negatives into a beehive. Over time, the bees built their honeycomb over the negatives. Once processed, the photographs retained the hive pattern over the landscape image.

This close engagement with nature is the essence of Hawker's way of working. She values and undertakes research on the areas in which she is working, and is currently doing volunteer work with bogong moth scientists, which will inform future artwork. Hawker is always curious about how nature and natural processes work, and attempts to make known the presence of more-than-human worlds.

Sammy Hawker: The Pressure of Darkness will open on Saturday, December 5.

The gallery is open daily from 10am to 4pm and entry is always free.