The Species Rose Collection, at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, contains more than a wonderful collection of wild roses, the ancestors of the modern roses we know today.  It also contains a lot of the stepping stones in between and takes you on journey through the history of rose hybridisation.  In this series of paintings I chose to paint some of these roses of historical interest.  If you haven’t spent much time contemplating old garden roses you will be unfamiliar with their informal beauty, subtle colour palette and names which urge you to pull out the history books.  As always, presenting a series of roses builds a story which becomes more powerful than the individual paintings.  I feel this will be a series I will enjoy adding to over the years.  These paintings are painted in acrylic on 30cm diameter stretched canvases.