Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize returns to National Archives

But in the early 1900s, the humanising of zoo animals was common, and in 1917 the antics of Mollie the smoking orang-utan at Melbourne Zoo were detailed in a book.

While it may not be PC, it's a reflection of our past relationship and curiosity with the natural world, making it a perfect fit for the latest exhibition from the National Archives.

Alongside an equally confronting clay sculpture of a crucified orang-utan, an excerpt from the book will go on display as part of a new twist on the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, with a real orang-utan skull thrown in for good measure in case the message isn't clear enough.

The annual exhibition of the South Australian Museum prize remains a favourite of the Canberra art scene when it tours the capital.

But this year, rather than showcasing the latest works highlighting the links between art, science and the natural world, the exhibition is a retrospective of the best works from the prize's 12-year history. Each piece has been paired with curios from the collections of South Australia's museum, herbarium and state records and our own National Archives to delve further into the science behind the art.

Among the past winners is the clay ape work Forgive Them Mother, by Chris Stubbs, which took out the 2004 prize.

The best-of exhibition is a placeholder while the popular and lucrative art prize undergoes an overhaul and returns next year with less restrictions on media and new prizes for emerging artists, scientist and people's choice.

Archives researcher Michelle Hughes says the retrospective provided a good opportunity to dig into the collection and find things linked to the themes of nature, science, and art.

The Archives says it has Canberrans asking when the Waterhouse will return months out from the exhibition. So why are we so enamoured?

"Canberra seems to be very environmentally conscious as a general rule, so that focus on natural science and the environment is something that's really interesting to Canberrans," Hughes says.

"It's always a really beautiful exhibition and it also attracts a really broad scope of artists; you can see some painting and sculpture and works on paper and it also draws entries from all over Australia as well as internationally."

Beyond the orang-utan, other pairings in the exhibition have a thylacine skin alongside the few surviving film fragments of the last Tasmanian tiger held in captivity, with Michael McWilliams' painting of the now extinct animal, The Centre of Attention, which took out the prize in 2005.

Although it's common for artists to be inspired by the environment, Hughes says with the Waterhouse prize they have to go beyond simply painting something they see in nature and dig into deeper themes of concerns surrounding natural science.

Glass artist Nikki Main is the only artist in the exhibition with a Canberra connection.

She took out the 2010 prize for her glass work Flood Stones, made during a residency at the Canberra Glassworks. The abstract piece will appear with a frog and flora specimens from the South Australian Museum to represent the species that regenerate after flooding.

After living near Canberra on the Murrumbidgee River, the inspiration behind her Waterhouse-winning work, Main decamped to Thirroul, near Wollongong, earlier this year.

She still intends to work out of the "fantastic" glassworks, but is now inspired by the sea rather than the sometimes fraught relationship inland inhabitants have with water.

"We were living right on the Murrumbidgee out on the Cotter Road and we'd had a lot of drought in previous years, so the whole issue of water was very poignant for me and thinking about water in the land and the importance for the growth of grass and also the health of the soil was something I came to understand very closely," Main says.

"At the time I was very interested in looking at the natural ecosystem of the river and why you need periods of flood and dry for the health of the river and what humans do to interrupt that and the impact it can have on rivers."

The natural world is still key to her life and art. Since moving to the coast she's joined the Australian Seabird Rescue helping catching pelicans and other birds caught up in hooks and lines.

Main says winning the prize early in her career gave her an incredible start that led to a "flurry" of making and exhibitions.

The money helped fund her work, travel, and buy equipment for the "expensive" medium of glass.

"At a lot of levels it was a wonderful thing … also for helping put glass on the map as a sculptural form," she says.

"Often glass is equated with vessels and functional objects and more and more now people are recognising it's a form of sculpture in its own right."

She's since moved away from the rock forms to more open and heavily carved works using the glassworks' large lathe.

After a trip to Laos she has also shifted to drawing, but plans to enter the Waterhouse Prize again next year.

"I continue to be excited by glass as well as drawing," she says. "Because I'm older I decided not to embark on setting up a full workshop, so to have the Canberra Glassworks has been fantastic."

Although it might not be the delicate scientific field sketches and watercolours documenting rare species that spring to mind when thinking of natural science art, the traditional media remain common in the Waterhouse.

But does this kind of art still have a role in a technology-filled world where photography and other means of documentation and expression are within everyone's reach?

Hughes thinks it does.

"It's a different angle on it, the fact that we still have art prizes like the Waterhouse that still include those more traditional mediums. It shows that sort of art is still enduringly popular," she says.

"It doesn't mean what photography or other technology has to offer isn't valid, it's just a different way of doing it."

Magnified: 12 years of the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize is on at the National Archives of Australia from November 27 to March 28.