REVEAL

It has been brought to my attention (thank you, Dr. Carole Wilson) that my drawing Red Gown, 2003, has been included in this all too brief exhibition at Post Office Gallery Ballarat, alongside works by the illustrious artists listed below.

The exhibition is timed coincide with the AMaGA National Conference 2024, held this week across several iconic Ballarat venues. Accordingly, the gallery has extended its opening hours for the run of the conference.

The image and following text are from Federation University Australia’s website.

REVEAL: WORKS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION

WED 18 SEP - SAT 21 SEP 2024

Dean BOWEN. Jon CAMPBELL. Antoinetta COVINO-BEEHRE. Rebecca GRIEG. Dale HICKEY.  Robert JACKS. Cody JOY. Deborah KLEIN. Bruno LETI. Lewis MILLER. Sally MILLER. Vera MOLLER. Josh MUIR.  John R. NEESON. Arron OLLINGTON. Lin ONUS. Wendy STAVRIANOS. Guy STUART. Noela STRATFORD. Barbara WEIR. Deborah WILLIAMS

Federation University’s Cultural Collection includes the Art Collection of over 2000 high-quality works of art, and its Historical Collection, stored and coordinated through the Mount Helen campus and the State Library of Victoria’s Ballarat Off Site Store (BOSS).

While the earliest works in the Permanent Art Collection are associated with Ballarat Technical Art School, Ballarat Teachers’ College is recognised for its concerted and determined approach to growing the Art Collection, later enhanced by generous gifts through the Cultural Gifts Program.

Covering most periods of Australian Art, including contemporary Australian prints, ceramics, design, painting and sculpture, the Art Collection predominantly features renowned Australian artists, as well as the work of staff and students associated with Federation University and its predecessor institutions.

The University’s Permanent Art Collection contributes to the intellectual and cultural enrichment of its student body, staff and the broader community, while also providing a rich and valuable resource for research.

Showcasing select works from the Art Collection, this exhibition celebrates twenty-one significant Australian artists whose work traces unseen relationships and draws on diverse lived experiences while responding to a myriad of subjects and ideas.

Image: Deborah KLEIN, Red Gown, 2003, oil pastel on paper, H 90 x W 74.5 cm

REVEAL: WORKS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION

POST OFFICE GALLERY

Federation University Australia 

NE corner of Sturt and Lydiard Street Nth 

BALLARAT VIC 3350

Extended opening hours:

Wednesday 18 September: 12.30-5 pm

Thursday 19 September: 12.30-5 pm

Friday 20 September: 12.30-5 pm

Saturday 21 September: 12.30-3.30 pm

Early linocuts at Gippsland Art Gallery

Many thanks to Lesley Duxbury for these photos of two of my early linocuts, currently on exhibit at Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, one of my favourite regional galleries.

Pictured top: Sometimes Jenny took long and lonely walks along the long and lonely beach, 1988, from the Pirate Jenny Prints suite of linocuts (1987-88). The point of departure for the work was the titular character in The Threepenny Opera, a jazz-influenced opera by Bertolt Brecht (book and lyrics) and Kurt Weill (music). It premiered at Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928. Ostensibly set in Victorian London, the opera is a savage satire of Germany’s Weimar Republic. In this series, I took Jenny out of London/Berlin and placed her in the red light district of my home town, St Kilda. (It has been done since, in 2010, as a theatre production with the great Paul Capsis as Pirate Jenny, but as far as I know, I was the first to do it)! 

Most of the works in the Pirate Jenny suite owe a debt to German Expressionism, in the case of this work, the German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, 1920, (Dir. Robert Wiene). 

The second linocut, the absurdist A Man, a Woman and a Duck, 1996, also set on St Kilda beach, is a more playful and affectionate homage to my home town. (Image 2, second from top).

Second view, top: Susan Fraser, One, two, slide, Back, two, slide, 2013, linocut. 

All works: Collection Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale.

I understand the works will be on view for three months.

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 4-21. Do save the date. 

Photo credit image 2: Tim Gresham 

Photo credit image 3: Shane Jones

Studio news

Pictured above and below: Alice B. Cat hitches a ride on Shane Jones for a closer look at a selection of my recent paintings laid out on the work table.

The would-be connoisseur was quickly discouraged when she got a too little too paws-on (although it could be argued that she was wearing white gloves).

Undaunted, the felon proceeded to attempt a break-in of the studio cupboard.

The paintings will be exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne from 4 - 21 December - minus paw prints, hopefully. 

Melbourne International Film Festival 2024

Oh, MIFF 2024, how I’ll miss you. 

Pictured top: Shane Jones and I on the red carpet at our beloved Forum Cinema - two interlopers standing in the spot ordinarily reserved for visiting dignitaries. (On the other hand, if a lifelong love of film - and seeing it in the cinema, as it should be seen - is also a pre-requisite, then hell, we couldn’t be in a more appropriate setting).

Pictured below: interior views of the Forum, the Capitol Cinema and three snapshots taken at the screening of the documentary Dory Previn: On My Way to Where at the Kino Cinema.

On the mezzanine of the Forum Cinema, Shane checks his MIFF sessions

Closing credits of Close Your Eyes (dir. Victor Erice) at the Capitol Cinema 

All in all, Shane and I saw 20 films at MIFF 24. I won’t list them all, but my personal favourites, in no particular order, were: Close Your Eyes (dir. Víctor Erice), My Favourite Cake (dir. Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha), Tuesday (dir. Daina O. Pusić), Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (dir. David Hinton), Dory Previn: On My Way to Where (dir. Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth), Most Precious of Cargoes (dir. Michel Hazanavicius), All Shall Be Well (Dir. Ray Yeung), and last, but very far from least, Flow, (dir. Gints Zilbalodis), which I was thrilled to learn has just been awarded the Bright Horizons Special Jury Award:

Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis)
Bright Horizons Special Jury Award
We would also like to recognise a movie that not only had a profound impact on us as jury members, but which through its grace, empathy and universality will leave a mark on cinema and the world at large.” – 2024 MIFF Awards Jury

(MIFF 2024 newsletter, Sunday August 25 2024). 

My greatest personal MIFF highlight was meeting Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth, co-directors of Dory Previn: On My Way to Where at the Kino Cinema bar after the Q&A that followed a screening of their film. 

The music and lyrics of Dory Previn have been a hugely significant part of my life since I first discovered her work in the early 1970s. I was well aware of this recently completed crowd-funded documentary, but was beginning to despair of ever having an opportunity to view it. Imagine my surprise and delight to discover it was included in the Music on Film category at this year’s MIFF. 

Over the years I’ve been saddened to see Dory Previn’s unique, deeply personal, yet in so many ways, universal and infinitely relatable work, slip into relative obscurity. The primary aim of Dory Previn: On My Way to Where is to rectify this. I can’t begin to thank the filmmakers enough, and thanks to MIFF 24, was able to tell them so myself. 

Dory Previn: On My Way to Where, dir. Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth 

Melbourne International Film Festival ran from 8-25 August. 

LACE FACE at QAGOMA and EYES EVERYWHERE at AGB

Deborah Klein, Lace Face, 1996, Linocut, 46 x 30 cm.

QAGOMA and other collections.

In recent happy news, thanks to the incredible generosity of a private collector, my linocut, Lace Face, 1996,  is now part of the permanent collection of QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art).

A pivotal work in the Tattooed Faces and Figures series of the mid-late 1990s, Lace Face is a direct descendant of the Decorated Women, my current series of paintings.

Deborah Klein, Eyes Everywhere, 1996, Linocut, 46 x 30 cm.

Art Gallery of Ballarat and other collections.

It seems the Tattooed Faces and Figures are currently having a moment (well, anyway, two of them are). In other recent news, at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Queer Views: New perspectives on the collection has been extended to October 4, due to popular demand. The exhibition includes my linocut, Eyes Everywhere, 1996. 

For more about Queer Views, go HERE.

A trip to Geelong with Ballarat Arts Alive

Last Saturday’s bus trip to Geelong, organised by local group Ballarat Arts Alive, was so engrossing, I completely forgot to take any photos. These shots of me talking about two of my early linocuts in the permanent collection of Geelong Gallery* were snapped by Shane Jones towards the end of a jam-packed day.

L-R: Deborah Klein, Jazz Age Memories and Sunny Sunday Afternoon, 1985, linocuts. 

Collection: Geelong Gallery.

As I mentioned to the group, the 1920s wind-up gramophone, record cabinet, Art Deco clock and vase depicted in Jazz Age Memories (LHS above), are still in my possession. They are an important part of my history and are therefore much treasured. All were purchased very cheaply at various London antique markets when I lived there in the 1970s. For the purpose of this post, the original position of the ceramic pieces is recreated below. Nowadays, however, they reside in a locked display cabinet, safe from any unwanted attention - and inevitable carnage - from our resident feline, the notorious Alice.

Saturday’s extensive tour also included visits to the new premises of Boom Gallery, with terrifically informative artist talks by current exhibiting artists Anita Iocovella and Ellie Malin, and, directly after our lunch break, to the headquarters of internationally renowned company, Back to Back Theatre.  

Warmest thanks to the Ballarat Arts Alive team for a truly memorable day.

*The linocuts are part of the current exhibition, The O’Donohue and Kiss Gift, which finishes on 28 July. For further information about these and other works in the exhibition, visit my Blog Post of 26 June, The past made present, HERE.

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.

HORNED POPPY (study)

Pictured above and below: selected developmental stages of the study for Horned Poppy, 2024, acrylic on canvas laid on board, 10 x 10 cm. The face tattoo is based on Horn Poppy (1885), a wallpaper designed by May Morris.

The study, a resolved work in its own right, is among several paintings currently in the works for my upcoming solo exhibition, Decorated Women, at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, opening on December 4. This may seem to be a long way off, but the way this year is racing by, it’s really and truly not. So do save the date!

The past made present

It has been many years since I’ve seen these early linocuts, two of the first works I made after graduating from art school in 1984.

The work on my left is titled Jazz Age Memories (1985) in homage, if I remember correctly, to the writings, lives and times of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald. (The former has long been one of my favourite authors and both, particularly the latter, would have a direct impact on several future works including this one). I still have the 1920s wind-up gramophone and art deco clock and vase, all of them purchased in London, my home for most of the 1970s. 

The basis for the title of the second linocut, Sunny Sunday Afternoon, (1985), is The Kinks song, Sunday Afternoon by Ray Davies, for no other reason than I’ve always loved it. I seem to recall that it was on constant replay in my head when I made the work. 

Both prints represent interiors of the rented house in East St Kilda where I was living at the time and were transcribed from detailed charcoal drawings made from life. 

Half a lifetime later, the linocuts are on view at Geelong Gallery, as part of The O’Donohue and Kiss Gift. Reconnecting with them has brought back a flood of memories, thus this little trip down memory lane. 

The works in the exhibition are selected from two major gifts to the gallery by collectors Rosemarie Kiss and the late Conrad O'Donohue in 2010 and 2019. Also included are prints by Australian artists Rick Amor, Grahame King, Katherine Hattam, Helen Ogilvie and John Ryrie, British artists Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank, French artist Gustave Doré, Spanish artist Francisco Goya and American artists James McNeill Whistler and Philip Pearlstein, among many others.

The O’Donohue and Kiss Gift at Geelong Gallery continues to 28 July. 

Cutting through time

A belated post on last Friday’s memorable visit to Cutting Through Time: Cressida Campbell, Margaret Preston, and the Japanese Print at Geelong Gallery. In conversation before a packed audience, Senior Curator Lisa Sullivan and Roger Butler, Emeritus Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Australia, discussed the prints of Margaret Preston and the influence of Japanese prints on her work. Roger wrote the catalogue raisonné on Preston’s prints (1987, revised 2005) and his knowledge of, and contribution to, Australian printmaking is immeasurable.

I first met Roger in the mid 1980s when I was the Administrative Assistant at the Print Council of Australia, so we go back a long way. But long before we met, Roger had already had a profound influence on my life, because he also wrote the catalogue essay for the Art Gallery of Ballarat publication Melbourne Linocuts and Woodcuts of the 1920s and 1930s (1981). As art school undergraduates, we were given very little instruction on relief printmaking and I taught myself to make linocuts primarily through studying examples in the catalogue. It was my bible, and even now, it’s never far from my sight. 

Roger served as president of the PCA from 1986-1990 and was editor of their quarterly journal IMPRINT from 1987-95. It’s always such a delight to catch up with him, although nowadays it doesn’t happen often enough.

Currently Geelong Gallery is printmaking nirvana, with three major exhibitions focusing on prints. Aside from Cutting Through Time, there is The O’Donohue and Kiss Gift (which will feature in my next post), and Dianne Fogwell’s epic multi-layered, multi-panelled relief print installation, Prescience, part of which is pictured below.

The exhibitions all run to 28 July and really need to be seen in the flesh. They shouldn’t be missed. 

Photo credit top image: Kate Gorringe-Smith.

Images 2-6: Margaret Preston: Installation view, Anemones, 1925, Fuchsia and balsam, 1928, Protea, 1925, Flannel flowers, 1929. (Hand-coloured woodcuts). 

Images 7-8: Cressida Campbell: Journey around my room, 2019 and Interior with Chinese Lantern, 2018. (Painted woodblocks). 

Images 9-10: Dianne Fogwell, Prescience (Multi-panelled relief print. Installation views).