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Tuesday, December 3, 2024

WAYS OF BEING - Illustrated Catalogue of Works

 

Deborah Klein

WAYS OF BEING

December 4-24 2024

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne 


ARTIST STATEMENT

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.


- T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (from Four Quartets), 1942


In my latest solo exhibition Ways of Being, I pick up the threads of the pivotal Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures of 1995-97 and, to a lesser extent, the insect women and masked women series (originating in 2000 and 2007 respectively), to weave entirely new narratives.


The original iteration of the Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures provided frameworks for the development of new iconography, a substantial amount of which underpins my paintings and works on paper to this day. Among the key works to emerge at this time were those focusing on “the gentle arts” - women’s handiwork created specifically for the domestic realm. As Rozsika Parker posits in her pioneering book, The Subversive Stitch (1996), women’s histories are recorded on fabric, not on stone. 


In my earlier works, body decorations inspired by textile arts memorialised the countless anonymous women who created those textiles. Over the passing years, however, a handful of names and faces have begun to emerge - foremost, for me, British Arts and Crafts textile and embroidery designer (also wallpaper and jewellery designer, embroiderer, socialist and educator), May Morris. Her exquisite designs were points of departure for several paintings and linocuts in the exhibition. 


For over two decades, many of my protagonists have resolutely turned their backs on the viewer. Drawing from the age-old motif of Rückenfigur, a compositional device most closely aligned with German Romantic painting, these solitary figures remain intrinsic to my work. They are represented in the exhibition by the Decorated Women, a suite of seven linocuts, and the hand-coloured linocut I Wished on the Moon, 2022. The latter work was created in collaboration with Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, as part of the 2020 APW George Collie Memorial Print Award.


Essentially Ways of Being (a pun on Ways of Seeing, John Berger’s seminal 1972 television series and the subsequent book by Berger and others) is what W. Somerset Maugham referred to in his homonymous memoir of 1938 as The Summing Up. As I aim to piece together disparate fragments from over 40 years of practice, seeking, perhaps, some kind of finality, fresh ideas and the possibilities of new directions persistently insinuate themselves. To quote again from T. S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding


What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning. 



Deborah Klein

December 2024



CATALOGUE


PAINTINGS 


Eye Candy, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………………………….$2,950

Acanthus, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm ………………………….……$2,950

Climber ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm ………………………….……$2,950

Tender Grapes ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm ……………..……$2,950

Masked Australian Painted Lady ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm…….$2,950

Tudor Rose ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm  …………………………$2,950

Cat Woman ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………………………$2,950

Blossoms in the tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………..$2,950

Spring and Summer, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………..…$2,950

Orange Tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………………….…$2,950

Spring growth, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm………………………$2,950

Rose arbour, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm……………………………$2,950

Tulips ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm…………………………………..$2,950

Birds of a feather, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm ………………….$2,950

Lady Justice ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………………….…$2,950

Secret garden, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm …………………….…$2,950

Olive and Rose, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm…………………….…$2,950

Springtime, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm…………………………..…$2,950

Horned  Poppy ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm………………….…$2,950

A book by its cover ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm ………….$2,950

SMALL WORKS

See Me, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..……………………….…………$850

In flower, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..…………………………….….$850

Tudor Rose I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..…………………………..$850

A book by its cover I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm…………………....$850

Horned Poppy I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..………………….…$850

Climber I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..……………………………….$850

Lady Justice I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..……………………….$850

Tulips I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..…………………….…………...$850

Hand embroidery, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..……………….…$850

Tender Grapes I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..……………………..$850

Chinoiserie, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..…………………………..$850

Blossoms in the tree I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm……..…………..$850

LINOCUTS

I wished on the Moon, 2022, hand-coloured linocut, 34.5 x 26.8 cm, ed. 20. Number of works available from edition: 10………..$1,150/F, $850/UF


Decorated Women, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 7…………..….$430/F, $300/UF 

Maid of Honour 2, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 8…………….…..$430/F, $300/UF 

Foreign Flora, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 7……………..…….$430/F, $300/UF 

Tangled Tulips, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 11…………..$430/F, $300/UF 

Sunflower, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 9 ……..….$430/F, $300/UF 

Other, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 10 …………..…$430/F, $300/UF 

A Snail’s Pace, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. Number of works available from edition: 10……………..$430/F, $300/UF 

Photography by Tim Gresham.

FOR ALL ENQUIRIES, CONTACT:

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery

Telephone0407 317 323

Email: st73599@bigpond.net.au

Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday, 1 - 5 pm

Saturday 11 am - 5 pm

& by appointment. 


During the run of WAYS OF BEINGthe gallery will also be open 

from 1-5 pm on Sunday December 22 , 

Monday December 23 and Tuesday December 24 


Saturday, November 30, 2024

Your invitation to WAYS OF BEING

Please find attached your invitation to WAYS OF BEING, my solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne.

OPENING EVENT
Saturday December 7, from 2-4 pm

MID-EXHIBITION DRINKS
Saturday December 14, from 2-4 pm

EXTRA HOURS
In addition to its regular hours, the gallery will also be open on the following dates:
Sunday December 22 , from 1-5 pm
Monday December 23, from 1-5 pm
Sunday December 24, from 1-5 pm

WAYS OF BEING runs from December 4-24, 2024. I do hope you’ll have a chance to drop by.

Monday, November 18, 2024

Eye Candy

Pictured top: a recent studio view. The newly completed painting, Eye Candy, is on the worktable, and looming over it is a poster of the work that was its primary influence, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926, by Otto Dix, one of my favourite paintings in the entire world. 

In 1993, I was awarded a three-month Australia Council studio residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. I still recall the thrill of coming upon Dix’s original on my first visit to Centre Pompidou. Until then, I’d only ever seen it in reproduction.


Subsequently I purchased the poster from the gallery shop. Ordinarily I’m not one for souvenirs, but wanted to memorialise that indelible moment of discovery. When I unrolled the poster back in my studio at the Cité, however, I discovered a serious fault in the colour reproduction and had to return it the following day. I felt ridiculously proud that I was able to explain the situation in my less than basic Council of Adult Education French - although I guess the flaw was fairly self-explanatory. The poster was cheerfully exchanged for the one shown here and it has been with me ever since. 



The hairstyle in a vintage photographic portrait that I’d had on file for ages was the basis for my protagonist’s bobbed hair. Serendipitously, the woman in the photograph is Otto Dix’s wife, Martha Dix. It has been cropped from the original image, a double portrait of Martha and Otto Dix, 1925, by August Sander. You can see it HERE


The Dadaesque eyepiece in Eye Candy takes its cue from Sylvia von Harden’s iconic monocle.


Directly below: an earlier studio view with Eye Candy still a work in progress. 



Eye Candy, 2024, acrylic on canvas board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm will be part of WAYS OF BEING, my solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, running from December 4-24.


For further information on WAYS OF BEING, scroll down to my previous post.