Zine Market at FEAR

  

Two new publications from Moth Woman Press (through which we publish our books and zines) will be launched this Saturday at FEAR (Femxle Experience Art Rebellion) in central Ballarat. 

Shadowomen 4, an eight-page mini-zine, pictured top, is illustrated with eight of my recent silhouette paintings. Limited copies of volumes 1-3 in the series will also be on display.

The mini-zine Eight Faces, pictured above, gathers together all of the paintings originally created for the annual exhibition One Hundred Faces at Playing in the Attic since the show was launched in 2020. The latest painted faces, which will be part of One Hundred Faces 2023, opening on 22 April, are featured on the front and back covers of the zine. 

A goodly selection of classic Moth Woman Press publications will also be available at FEAR Zine Market. 

I’m a big fan of zines and zine making as an accessible and affordable way of making, distributing and collecting artwork, and the sense of community it can bring.

Looking forward to unveiling Shadowomen 4 and Eight Faces, as well as meeting fellow zinesters - and hopefully you too - this coming Saturday. 

You will find us all at -

FEAR Zine Market

Femxle Experience Art Rebellion

57 Bridge Mall, 
Ballarat Central on 
Saturday, 1 April from 10 am - 2 pm

Clunes Booktown 2023

Pictured above and below: a handful of photos snapped at yesterday afternoon’s panel discussion Not Just a Pretty Picture in the Esmond Gallery at Clunes Booktown. 

A big thank you to everyone involved in the organisation of Clunes Booktown Festival 2023, especially Jon Hawkes and Sue Beal, who invited me to join the dream team of panelists, Simon Perry and Philip Faulks, to our wonderful Chair, Michele Ely, and to Shelley Hinton, who hung the accompanying exhibition, A picture’s worth a thousand words.

Thanks also to everyone who came to our talk. It was lovely seeing so many of you there. We couldn’t have wished for a more terrific audience. I hope you had as much fun as we did. 

Photos 1 & 2, L-R: Chair Michele Ely, panelists Simon Perry, myself and Philip Faulks; 

Photo 3: Discussing my painting ‘Apiary’, 2022;

Photo 4, L-R: Linocuts by DK and drawings by Philip Faulks;

Photo 5, L-R: My linocuts The Heavens Declare 1 & 2, 2022 and Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny in a Kimono, both 1987.

A thousand words at Clunes Booktown

 

On Sunday afternoon, March 26, I will join forces with artists Philip Faulks, Simon Perry, Darcy McConnell (ENOKi) and Chairperson Michele Ely in the Esmond Gallery at the renowned Clunes Booktown Festival for what we trust will be a lively and enlightening panel discussion about the stories we tell through our artworks. 

Accompanying the talk is an exhibition curated by Shelley Hinton: A picture’s worth a thousand words. I have four linocuts in the show, including two early works, Pirate Jenny in a Kimono and Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife, from the seminal Pirate Jenny Suite, the first of my works to employ narrative.

📖Not just a pretty picture

🗓Sunday 26 March, 1.00pm

📍Esmond Gallery, Clunes 

🎫 https://tickets.clunesbooktown.com.au/Events/Not-just-a-pretty-picture

Pictured from top:

1: Pirate Jenny in a Kimono, 1987, linocut 61.5 x 46 cm. (Private collection)

2: Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife, 1987, linocut, 61.5 x 45.5 cm. (Private collection)

Three Women in the Company of Morris

As a longtime devotee of the Pre-Raphaelites and their contemporaries, I’m eagerly anticipating the forthcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours from The Ashmolean Museum, which runs from May 20 - August 6.

My painting Three Women, 2021, will hang at the AGB in the accompanying exhibition, In the Company of Morris, alongside works by historical and contemporary artists who have drawn inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelites, and in particular, William Morris. 

It was a very pleasant surprise to discover Three Women, which pays homage to his daughter, May Morris, reproduced in the article linked below.

Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours from The Ashmolean Museum, by Fiona Anderson, WEEKEND NOTES, 19-20 March 2023: https://www.weekendnotes.com/pre-raphaelites-drawings-and-watercolours-the-ashmolean-museum/

Pictured top: Three Women, 2021, triptych, acrylic on linen, 40.5 x 30.5 cm (each panel).

NOT JUST A PRETTY PICTURE at CLUNES BOOKTOWN

Once upon a time the old adage  ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ inspired one of the stories in my little book There was once…The collected fairy tales. The story is exactly 1000 words long. 

On Sunday 26 March I’ll be joining fellow visual artists Simon Perry, Philip Faulks and Darcy McConnell (ENOKi) at Clunes Booktown for Not just a pretty picture, an informal panel discussion chaired by Michelle Ely. We’d be delighted to see you there. 

Pictured top: Excerpt from A Thousand Words, from the anthology There was once… The collected fairy tales, stories and pictures by Deborah Klein.

📖Not just a pretty picture

🗓Sunday 26 March, 1.00pm

📍Esmond Gallery, Clunes 

🎫https://tickets.clunesbooktown.com.au/Events/Not-just-a-pretty-picture

Launch of THREADS at Coal Creek Community Park and Museum

 

What a fantastic turnout there was for the launch on Thursday evening of THREADS, The Stories We Weave at Coal Creek Community Park and Museum in South Gippsland. 

I only wish I’d taken more shots of the exhibition as a whole, but we found ourselves so engaged with the works and the lovely people we met, including Olivia O’Connor, whose extraordinary work Always Carry a Handkerchief, timber, oil paint, 2023, hangs next to mine, (pic #6) that time simply ran away from us. No doubt the museum will be posting photos of the evening’s highlights on their Instagram and Facebook pages, so you can head over there. Even better, a road trip is highly recommended. 

Last night’s personal highlights included reuniting with old friends, including Kim McDonald (pics #3 and #4). Kim and I go back a long way - we first met in the early 1980s as fellow art students. Kim and Jasmine Susic (seen in pic #7 with Shane Jones) have a terrific collaborative multi-media work in the exhibition, BLOOM - and the Sensate World, 2022.

I first met Cresside Collette (second from left, pic #4 above) soon after graduation from art school. As one of the invited artists, Cresside has several works in the show, including tapestries that were woven en plein air (pic #9). Her tapestry, Revealing Grace, 2000, is on the far right in pic #10. 

Huge thanks to curator Rachel Jones (pic #4, far right) for inviting me to be part of THREADS and to Coal Creek Community Park and Museum for their warm welcome and hospitality.

International Women’s Day

In the studio this International Women’s Day 2023: 

Working proof of a linocut inspired by Lotus, a textile design by embroidery and jewellery designer, artisan, educator, editor and socialist, May Morris (1862-1938). 

An Invitation to THREADS

Seven of my paintings have been included in THREADS, ‘the stories we weave', an exhibition at Coal Creek Community Park and Museum exploring the theme of women and textiles/fibre arts.

Please join us for the official opening of THREADS on Thursday, 9 March, 6.30 - 8.30 pm.

Click on invitation to enlarge 

Deborah Klein, Primavera ll, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas,
37.5 x 15 cm, part of THREADS at Coal Creek Community 
Park and Museum, 6 March - 1 May, 2023

THREADS will showcase artworks and objects from the South Gippsland Shire Council and Coal Creek collections, together with works by contemporary artists and makers. 

Exhibiting alongside these will be works by the Coal Creek Spinners invited artists Sarah Parkes, Cresside Collette and Deborah Klein.

Some preview images, snapped by curator Rachel Jones, are below.

THREADS The Stories We Weave

Coal Creek Community Park and Museum 

Hours: Friday - Monday, 10 am - 4 pm

The exhibition runs from 6 March - 1 May 2023.

Tulips

  

 

Pictured above: An accumulation of lino blocks on the work table, the makings of an upcoming artist book inspired by the works of May Morris. In the foreground are Lotus and the partially carved Tulips.

The tattoo in Tulips is based on a detail from Tulip, an embroidered sideboard runner designed by May Morris for Morris & Co. in 1890. (Bottom right page view directly below).

Further progress views of Tulips follow:

Not just a pretty picture - Clunes Booktown 2023

I’m very much looking forward to being part of the upcoming Clunes Booktown Festival, along with some consummate artists and storytellers. We hope you can join us! 

The following information is courtesy Clunes Booktown 2023:

Not just a pretty picture...

Four internationally recognised artists - Simon Perry, Philip Faulks, Deborah Klein & Darcy McConnell (ENOKi) - talk about how their concerns infiltrate their works, be they sculpture, paintings, woodcut prints, or designing an art tram. Aesthetics aside, there's purpose and deep deliberation in these works. Chaired by Michelle Ely. 

Simon Perry is a Scottish sculptor and academic, based in Melbourne. Best known for his large-scale public art works for urban spaces in Australia and overseas, including Melbourne's Public Purse and Public Address sculptures. His practice incorporates numerous sculptural techniques including casting, carving and fabrication. 

Philip Faulks has been an exhibiting painter, drawer and sculptor since 1981. He has mounted 15 solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and China and been included in more than 75 group exhibitions in Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and Italy. He has taught visual art within at tertiary level since 1991. 

Deborah Klein has held regular solo exhibitions since 1987 and participated in group exhibitions in Australia and internationally. In 2009 she founded Moth Woman Press, through which she publishes her artist books and zines. Her work has received numerous awards and is represented in public and university collections throughout Australia. 

Darcy McConnell (ENOKi) is a Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung man who created one of the 2022 RISING First Peoples Melbourne Art Trams, My Aunty Once Told Me, running on Routes 58 & 59. He contributed to Solid Lines (2022), an RMIT sponsored report on fostering First Nations involvement in the design and commercial art industries.

📖Not just a pretty picture
🗓Sunday 26 March, 1.00pm
📍Esmond Gallery, Clunes 
🎫https://tickets.clunesbooktown.com.au/Events/Not-just-a-pretty-picture or go HERE.

Full details of Clunes Booktown 2023 events are HERE.

📷 Chelepteryx collesi Moth Mask, 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 20 cm by Deborah Klein

Valentine’s Day Greetings

A slightly late offering for Valentine’s Day: Heart Tattoos, 1996, linocut, 46 x 30 cm. Ed. 15. 

From the Tattooed Faces series, 1995-97.

Lotus - further progress views

Heading slowly in the direction of an artist book inspired by the work of May Morris (1862-1938).

Pictured above is the latest completed lino block, followed by views of the cutting process. The basis for my protagonist’s body decoration is a fragment of Lotus, an embroidered panel, one of a pair attributed to May Morris for Morris & Co, circa 1885. (A detail is shown in the final image below).

For earlier progress views, scroll down to Blog Post Monday, January 23, or go HERE.

A visit to Latrobe Regional Gallery

   

On Friday afternoon Shane Jones and I spent some quiet quality time at Latrobe Regional Gallery exploring the summer exhibitions prior to the evening’s lively celebratory event. 

It has been a long time since I last visited the gallery - much longer than I realised. The last occasion was in 2009 when I gave an artist talk in connection with the The enchanted forest: new gothic storytellers, a group exhibition curated by Jazmina Cininas that toured extensively throughout 2008-2009. It showed at LRG from 21 February - 19 April, 2009. 

Image 1 (top): On Friday afternoon alongside my linocut Anon, 1998, in Fellow Travellers, an exhibition guest-curated by Jenny Peterson. Image 2, directly  above: With my linocut A Man, a Woman and a Duck, 1996 in the exhibition In our own time, curated by LRG Assistant Curator, Gabriella Duffy. (Photo credit: Shane Jones).

Some installation views follow. I had every intention of taking more, but over the course of the evening, we met so many lovely people, the time had flown by before we knew it - rather like the last 14 years.

The above exhibitions (which opened last November) are highly recommended, but do make haste. They finish their run on February 12.  

There are two superb exhibitions in the ground floor galleries. In Gallery 3 is Observatorium, mixed media works by Josephine Jakobi (running to April 9). In Galleries 1 and 2 is the touring show Looking Glass: large works on canvas by Waanyi artist, Judy Watson and sculptures by Kokatha and Nukunu glass artist, Yhonnie Scarce, running to 26 March.

Fellow Travellers

Anon, a linocut I made in 1998, has been curated into the exhibition Fellow Travellers at Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, Vic.

Fellow Travellers: Prints from the LRG Collection

26 November 2022 – 12 February 2023
Gallery 5 & 6

 

Artists: Rashida Abdel-Aziz, Marita Anderson, Rosalind Atkins & Ex de Medici, Helen Burkhardt, Caroline Durre, Rodney Forbes, Sue Fraser, Kaye Green, Juli Haas, Euan Heng, Kees Hos, Carolyn Jones, Tim Jones, Helen Kavanagh, Kat Kershaw, Deborah Klein, Stewart MacFarlane, John Ryrie, Liz Tyler, Bonnie Quirk, Brian Robinson, Judy Watson, Yvonne Watson, Kate Zizys. Guest Curator: Jenny Peterson.

Local printmaking stalwart, Jenny Peterson has trawled through Latrobe Regional Gallery’s print collection to create a show looking at comradery and collaboration among mainly Gippsland artists.

- From LRG website.

Fellow Travellers for me also refers to the many printmakers in the contemporary Australian art scene. We tend to communicate and collaborate in our varied practices. In the teaching and learning space of art school and the community press environment, collaboration around ideas and development of print exchanges and projects can flourish.

Many of the prints in the LRG collection have been acquired from the Print Council of Australia through their annual commission program. Over the years several Gippsland artist prints were acquired through this process. 

- Excerpt from Guest Curator Jenny Peterson’s essay, Print Council of Australia online, 29 November 2022. The full essay is here: https://www.printcouncil.org.au/fellow-travellers/

In 2009, Anon was exhibited in …a thousand words at Tweed River Art Gallery. Curated by Susi Muddiman and Gayle McDermott, the exhibition comprised works selected from the archive of the Print Council of Australia. My Blog Post of February 20, 2009, …a thousand words at Tweed River Gallery, NSW, includes a short essay about Anon. You can read it HERE.

Anon is the second of my prints to be included in the LRG summer program. The other work, A Man, a Woman and a Duck, 1996, is part of In our own time, curated by Gabriella Duffy, also current to 12 February. (See previous post). 

Image top: Deborah Klein, Anon, 1998, two-colour linocut printed from three blocks on Japanese mending tissue stitched onto brown oriental paper, 57.5 x 38 cm. Ed. 55. Print Council of Australia Commission Print, 1998. Collection: Latrobe Regional Gallery, Vic.