Claire Banks, Botanical Illustrator
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Claire Banks, Botanical Illustrator
Since 2009 I have worked closely with the science team at RBGE creating visual records of plant species from over 25 families. This has included diverse projects ranging from drawing a single cell to series of very tall tropical trees and almost everything in between. These illustrations have been published in botanical journals, Floras and identification keys. In 2015 I was awarded the Jill Smythies Medal for botanical illustration by the Linnean Society of London.
The creation of visual knowledge which communicates complex structures with clarity and accuracy links my work as an illustrator with my roles as an educator and researcher. I developed the scientific illustration module of the RBGE Botanical Illustration Diploma course and teach modules of the course both in attended classes at the garden and online.
In 2019 I was awarded a scholarship from the Scottish Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities to undertake a multidisciplinary PhD titled ‘Company Drawings of Natural History: the evolution of techniques and materials’ which focuses on the natural history drawings commissioned by Dr. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton. As a collaborative doctoral award this project brings the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh together with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, combining History of Science and History of Art with Technical Art History to investigate the role of Indian artists in the creation and dissemination of science in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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2015 - Jill Smythies Medal for botanical illustration from the Linnean Society of London.
Discover more
- Dr Mark Watson
- Dr Caroline Lehmann
- Dr Bhaskar Adhikari, Temperate Asia Taxonomist
- Dr Hannah Atkins
- Dr Zoe Goodwin
- Dr Mark Hughes
- Dr Roger Hyam, Biodiversity Data Systems Developer
- Dr Henry Noltie, Research Associate
- Dr Colin Pendry
- Dr Alan Elliott, bioinformatician
- Dr Gail Stott, CMEP Researcher
- Dr Catherine Kidner
- Dr Michael Möller
- Dr James Richardson
- Dr Louis Ronse De Craene
- Dr Tiina Sarkinen
- Dr Peter Wilkie
- Dr Mark Newman
- Dr Peter Moonlight
- Dr Kanae Nishii
- Sanna Olander
- Jess Rickenback
- Madhavi Sreenath
- Thibauld Michel
- Elliot Convery-Fisher, PhD Candidate
- Briggitthe Melchor Castro
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