Stephanie Jakovac has been covering the High Country from ground level for years.
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The Albury-based artist never travelled without a sketchbook and camera when she headed for the hills, the mountains or the wetlands.
"I sketch whatever captures my eyes," she said.
"I get down to the ground to sketch the tiny native orchids and flowers."
During the past 15 years of bushwalking either alone or with Albury-Wodonga Field Naturalists, Jakovac said patience and persistence had always paid off.
"I found the elbow orchid in 2022 after looking for it for 11 years!" Jakovac said.
"It has no leaves but its flowers imitate a native wasp (that pollinates it).
"It's so difficult to find so I was very excited to discover it!"
Her sketches were transferred to linen before she completed oil paintings at her East Albury studio.
Jakovac's latest Australian native flora artworks will feature in an exhibition in her birth country of Slovenia within weeks.
Last year Jakovac was invited by Slovenia's Department for Slovenes Abroad to be a guest artist at an annual festival of homecoming of Slovenes.
She was also invited to exhibit in 2019, but it was impacted by the global pandemic.
Jakovac was kept busy translating Australian government COVID-19 advice for Slovenian and Croatian communities during 2020.
Proud to take native flora artwork
Having worked in Albury since 1980, Jakovac was thrilled to be a guest artist overseas.
She had done 18 paintings on unstretched linen, which she would take with her.
"Then they will be stretched on the stretcher frames in Slovenia," she said.
"I am proud to take Australian native flora with me for art lovers and people who know little or wish to know more about Australia."
Jakovac was also the only Australian artist invited to a one-week retreat for international artists in late May.
When she first moved to Australia in December 1973, Jakovac had a very different impression of Australian flora.
"I'd gone from cold to hot suddenly," Jakovac said.
"I thought Australia was very hot and barren particularly in Queensland.
"Then I moved to the Border in 1980 and I started walking in the mountains and the Australian alps.
"There are 30 different orchids in the Chiltern forest alone."
Jakovac had held exhibitions in Albury and Canberra, showing how flora survived and regenerated after major bushfires.
"Nature keeps fascinating me and the Australian bush and High Country keep my artistic inspiration alive," she said.
Jakovac's exhibition of Australian native flora will be staged at the Slovenian festival during June and later in the capital of Ljubljana.
Afterwards the exhibition will travel throughout Europe.
The artist in residence at Hyphen - Wodonga Library Gallery until Sunday, April 7, Jakovac will travel to Slovenia in late May.
