One Hundred Faces 2025 #1: Cultivated Poppy

Incredibly, 2025 marks the sixth anniversary of ONE HUNDRED FACES at Playing in the Attic, an exhibition I’ve always enjoyed being part of. 

Using canvas boards sized 4 x 4 inches (10.16 x 10.16 cm), 35 invited artists have created 100 works, all in celebration of the face, human and otherwise. 

Cultivated Poppy, 2025, acrylic on canvas board, is one of two paintings I’ve made especially for the exhibition. Scroll down to see the work in earlier stages of its development.

ONE HUNDRED FACES officially opens at 2 pm on Saturday 26 April (Anzac Day long weekend) and continues to 25 May. 

Playing in the Attic 

13 Ballaarat Street

Talbot VIC 3371

Opening hours:  Friday - Monday, 10 - 4pm

The exhibition can also be viewed 24/7 in Playing in the Attic’s front window. 

Last works for WAYS OF BEING

“Blue and green should never be seen”, or so the saying goes. Nevertheless, these are the final two works completed for Ways of Being, my upcoming solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in Melbourne. On the worktable, L-R are Horned Poppy and A Book by its Cover, both 2024, acrylic on canvas board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. The origins of the tattoo iconography will be discussed in a future post.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the paintings were documented by our long-term photographer, Tim Gresham, before delivery to the superlative framers at Creative Framing Gallery in Ballarat. It’s hard to believe the end is in sight, especially as I expected to be working right up to the finish line with this show. 

For those who have been kind enough to ask in advance for dates, the exhibition will be Stephen McLaughlan Gallery’s last cab off the rank for 2025, running from December 4-24, with an opening event on Saturday December 7 from 2-4 pm. 

Further details are below. It’s a notoriously busy time of year, so do note the dates in your diary. 

Images 1-6 below: sequential progress views of Horned Poppy.

Images 1-5 below: sequential progress views of A Book by its Cover 

Acanthus

On the easel, top: Acanthus, 2024, acrylic on canvas board, last seen on June 1 as part of Decorated Women, two giant projections towering over Ballarat’s wet and wintry streets* in White Night Ballarat 2024.

*N.B. Spring is here now, supposedly, and it’s still wet and wintry. But I digress…

Acanthus can be viewed up close and personal (and on a more human scale) in my upcoming solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne from December 4-24. Do save the date. 

Photo credit image 2: Tim Gresham 

Photo credit image 3: Shane Jones

TENDER GRAPES, a work in progress

Pictured above, from top: a new studio pinboard (carefully curated, as it holds a mere fraction of my huge postcard collection) and on the worktable, L-R: Tender Grapes, 2023, acrylic on canvas panel, 10 x 10 cm (study) and Tender Grapes, 2024, acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm (work in progress).

Pictured below: a closer view of the works. For more about the study for Tender Grapes (a finished work in its own right, as are all the studies in this series), go HERE.

The face tattoo is based on the following detail from Autumn and Winter, c 1895-1900, an embroidered panel designed by May Morris. 

Both paintings will be included in Decorated Women, my solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, opening on December 4.

White Night Ballarat - Decorated Women, Part 2: Tattooed Faces and Masked Women

Part two of a belated follow-up on the projections of my works in the recent White Night Ballarat, this time focusing on the Tattooed Faces and Masked Women.

Selected footage from the projection can be viewed on my Instagram page by clicking HERE. 

The following stills (all but the fifth image from the top, which was snapped by me) are by Tim Gresham. 

 

Our exploration of White Night was punctuated by a memorable meal at Oscar’s, a favourite eatery of Shane’s and mine, with friends Gaye Britt, her friend Clare and the aforementioned Tim Gresham. Later in the evening we caught up with two other friends, Paul Compton and his partner, Evan, for (in my case) a warming hot white chocolate at the Pancake Parlour. Paul and Evan had travelled from Melbourne especially for the event. They loved every minute of it and caught several attractions that somehow we’d missed. Their enthusiasm was palpable. Hearing about their own White Night adventures was as if to experience it all over again, but with a wonderfully fresh perspective - a perfect note on which to end the evening. Pictured below, L-R: myself, Paul, Evan and Shane. Thank you to Paul Compton for the photo (and my hot chocolate).  

The images in this projection are from my current series of paintings, scheduled to be exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, in early December. Many thanks to Tim Gresham for the photography, both in this and in my last post.

Special thanks to Andrew Walsh, Artistic Director of White Night Ballarat, for asking if the works could be made available as the basis for a second projection, to Sue Beal, Producer of White Night, for putting my name forward to the White Night team and for being such a pleasure to work with, to animator Justin Weyers for the incredible skill and vision he brought to the Moth and Insect Women component of Decorated Women (see previous post) and to everyone else on their amazing team. 

White Night 2024 took place on June 1, between the hours of 6-12 pm. For an overview of this extraordinary event, including the complete program, visit White Night Ballarat’s website HERE.

Tudor Rose (Part 2)

Pictured top, far right: a further progress view of Tudor Rose (acrylic on canvas board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm). To its left is the study for the work and a reproduction of the eponymous needlework panel designed by May Morris, from which the tattoo iconography is drawn.

Additional developmental views are below:

The work is from the current series, Decorated Women, to be exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne in December 2024. 

For earlier views of the work in progress, go HERE.

Tudor Rose: a work in progress

Pictured above and below: developmental stages of Tudor Rose, acrylic on canvas on board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm.

The face decorations on the small study, soon to be recreated on the larger work, are based loosely on selected motifs in Tudor Rose, c. 1890, an embroidery panel designed by May Morris. An article on the significance of the Tudor Rose and its application in embroidery is HERE. 

Tudor Rose is part of my ongoing series, Decorated Women, scheduled for exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in early December 2024.

Flashback Friday

In anticipation of the renowned Ballarat Begonia Festival  this coming long weekend: a flashback to Begonia Virus 2, 2020, acrylic on canvas board, 10 x 10 cm, private collection). 

The photo directly below was taken at the 2020 Ballarat Begonia Festival, which was, as always, a spectacular affair.

Begonia Virus 2 was made in the relatively early, still uncertain months of the Corona Virus. (I never could resist a play on words). It is one of two paintings created for the first annual One Hundred Faces exhibition at Playing in the Attic, then located in Ballarat, now thriving and blooming in nearby Talbot.

Who knew that this and its sister work, Begonia Virus 1 (2020, private collection), not to mention those made for subsequent iterations of One Hundred Faces, would be precursors to my current work?

Ghosts of Christmas just Past and Belated Happy New Year

On January 7, Shane Jones and I attended the final performance of A Christmas Carol at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne. 

We saw the first Australian production a little over a year ago, with Australian actor David Wenham as Ebenezer Scrooge. It was as fine a time in the theatre as we have ever spent, so much so that we were reluctant to chance undercutting a perfect theatrical memory with a revival that might not quite live up to it. In the end, however, a generous offer of two-for-one tickets for the final performances was too tempting to resist - although we still had slight reservations.

We needn’t have been concerned. In the role of Scrooge, Welsh actor Owen Teale was every bit as impressive as David Wenham, which, believe me, is saying something, and the rest of the cast (some of them returning from the last production) were, as before, simply wonderful. I love Dickens and still treasure my childhood copy of the novella on which the play is based.

As in the previous production, just before it got under way, several cast members hurled oranges into the audience with gay abandon and astonishing precision. Shane proved to be as gifted a catcher as they were pitchers, and managed to catch one for each of us and another for the woman sitting next to me. We also scored two mince pies each from a couple of “vendors” moving through the audience. They were the best mince pies I’ve ever tasted.

My orange survived long enough to serve briefly as an additional reference for Orange Tree, another painting that draws primary inspiration from an embroidery designed by May Morris (work in progress, pictured top). The orange was consumed shortly after this photo was taken. It was every bit as sweet and juicy as it looks.

Belated but heartfelt wishes to you all for a sweet, juicy and happy 2024. 

A peep inside… Part 6: Tattooed Faces

My tour of the artist books gathered on the studio table in my recent blog post concludes with Tattooed Faces, 1996, the first artist book I ever made. Tattooed Faces evolved during the course of my MA research, beginning with Tattooed Face Number 1, which is pictured below, followed by further selected page views.

In many ways, it feels as if I’ve now come full circle, as evidenced by my current works, the Decorated Women. (See HERE, HERE and HERE). Still very much in progress, the works are earmarked for a solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in late 2024. 

Tattooed Faces and the Moth Woman Press publications I’ve been documenting on this blog of late were recently delivered to Stephen McLaughlan Gallery for the exhibition Artist Books & Folios. I’m leaving for 5 weeks in the UK on September 14, so although I’m excited for the exhibition, I won’t actually get to see it. But I do hope you’ll have a chance to drop by before it ends its run on October 7. Your invitation is below.