Artwork: Reconstruction of Batocara mitchelli 2020
Artist: Molly Kamenz
Medium: watercolour on paper
Acquisition: A commission of the ACT Legislative Assembly Art Advisory Committee, 2025
Asset no: OLA003003
About the Work
Batocara mitchelli was adopted as the ACT’s fossil emblem in November 2022. An expert committee of geoscientists, palaeontologists, and science communicators selected several options, and then online voting was open to Canberra residents. Batocara mitchelli is a Silurian trilobite from an extinct group of anthropods and is the most common trilobite in the ACT. Trilobites went extinct around 250 million years ago. A rare, near complete specimen was found while drilling the foundations of the Treasury building in the 1940s.
About the Artist
Molly Kamenz is an artist with a special interest in natural history, in printmaking techniques such as lithography and etching, drawing and watercolour painting. She studied Natural History Illustration at the University of Newcastle (2019) during which time she undertook an exchange in the USA. Kamenz was awarded a CAPO Residency at Megalo Print Studio in 2023. She has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions at Strathnairn (Fallow, 2022), Megalo Gallery (2020, 2023) and CCAS, Manuka (Canopy Cartography, 2024). In 2020 Kamenz was commissioned by Geoscience Australia to depict the new ACT Fossil Emblem.