This was followed by Anne Graham's Violet Glasshouse , an attempt to seek refuge in the gentility of an archetypal British glasshouse. Barely germinated blue-toned violets and pansies proliferated around orange plastic pools containing gurgling fountains. The almost soporific calm was syncopated on either side of the Palm House by ensembles of blue folding chairs and milk-crate tables. Blue, plastic curtains did little to temper the unexpected insertion of an Australian vernacular. Bottles of water, botanic reference books on the tabletops and transparencies of moonscapes pasted to windowpanes completed the invitation to sit and rest awhile.
Glasshouses have a magical quality.
They are also containers of worlds within worlds. Tom Arthur's Washington's Palms defied the natural order of things. The installation was viewed through the glass of the locked Palm House door. One could scarcely hope to be able to describe all the elements of the work, or ascribe meaning to them here. Arthur's work paid homage to the mutability of language and to the beauty of its associative powers.