Karin Montgomery, Camellia Japonica, Rose of Winter, 2025 from The Camellia Society,
Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 28 June – 24 August 2025. Vase: Richard Stratton. Photo: Samuel Hartnett
Our July Laurel is awarded to Karin Montgomery for her exquisitely crafted paper flora.
There is nothing ordinary about the appraisal of nature evident in Karin Montgomery’s paper craft. Her feats of patience are propelled by both cultural and botanical observations. The Camellia Society foregrounds her fascination with the lengthy backstory of the plants in her garden and their social history. Camellia Societies flourished in Aotearoa during a time when the scarcity of the plant made it a symbol of social status. However, the camellia grew so well in local conditions that its flower soon became ubiquitous. Montgomery’s exquisite paper replicas of Camellia japonica and Camellia oleifera return the wonder to the ‘common-or-garden’.
Montgomery’s exceptional paper craft reflects her attentiveness to the ecology of her garden and immediate inner-city neighbourhood. She has a background as a textile importer and has long appreciated botanical art — favourite examples include the ‘paper mosaicks’ of Mary Delany made in eighteenth-century England and the watercolours of Fanny Osborne of the indigenous flora surrounding her home on Aotea, Great Barrier Island, at the end of the nineteenth century.
Montgomery’s own earliest paper flora were made during New Zealand’s first Covid lockdown in 2020, based on unremarkable flowers foraged on daily walks and plucked from buckets outside the local dairy. Her more recent work reflects research into whaler gardens in Aotearoa and the Chinese origins of local species. In 2024, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand acquired Montgomery’s A Garden for Nicola Azzariti, a collection of 8 species common in Aotearoa during the period 1820-90, dedicated to her Great Grandfather, a fisherman from Trani, a seaport of Apulia, Southern Italy, who landed in Port Chalmers, New Zealand in 1875.
Karin Montgomery’s garden
I live in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa and work from my home, on the dining table, overlooking a small but lush garden with a winding pebble path running through it and a table and chairs under a tree.
In my garden, I have two large trees: one is a variety of Maple and the other an Amelanchier tree. I also have two smaller trees, a very prolific Persimmon tree and a native Kōwhai. These wonderful trees give me gentle dappled light throughout the spring and summer. Then in winter, they are bare with beautiful stark branches, allowing the weak winter sun to pour into my windows.
Several rambling rose bushes flower throughout the year, along with a very pretty tiny rose, Slaters Crimson China, the first rose to come to Aotearoa with Samuel Marsden’s missionaries in 1814.
Hydrangeas also grow well in my garden, beginning in the spring as big white blooms, then turning a wonderful lime green with delicate shades of light pink around the edges.
These plants, along with numerous others in the garden, are all very hardy; anything a little delicate simply won’t last. Birds and insects are most welcome, but they do nibble away at the more temperamental plants.
The neighbourhood is inner-city, and for the most part, the gardens are rather wild and rambling. The streets have glorious, well-established trees that drop copious golden leaves throughout autumn.
Every season brings something new and interesting.
Follow @karinlmontgomery
The Camellia Society, Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 28 June – 24 August 2025
