Presenting for the first time more hybrid creatures in living colour. Like Swarm*, the fairy tale that spawned them, the Winged Women are in part a fanciful reflection on insect taxonomy and the skilled, but largely overlooked work of Australian female colonial naturalists and artists, including Mary Morton Allport, Annabella Boswell, Georgiana McCrae and two of my favourites, South Australian sisters Martha Berkeley and Theresa Walker.
It was my original intention to hand colour the series in the manner of natural history illustrations. But at the time of proofing I felt the images worked equally well in their virginal state; I wondered if the addition of colour might appear superfluous. At their debut in the exhibition Natural Histories at Chrysalis Gallery last October, the black and white Winged Women provided a necessary counterbalance to the numerous coloured pastel drawings and paintings that made up the rest of the show. Within the entirely different context of Re-evolution, it’s time for them to show their true colours.
*From There was once…The collected fairy tales (2009).
Blue Triangle Winged Woman, 2011, hand coloured, linocut,
34 x 34 cm, ed. 15. Photograph by Tim Gresham
Clearwing Butterfly Woman, 2011, hand coloured linocut, 34 x 34 cm,
ed. 15. Photograph by Tim Gresham
Monarch Butterfly Winged Woman, 2011, hand coloured linocut,
34 x 34 cm, ed. 15. Photograph by Tim Gresham
Great Eggfly Winged Woman, 2011, hand coloured linocut, 34 x 34 cm,
ed. 15. Photograph by Tim Gresham