INTERIOR Part 2: Opening Night

Pictured above: Secret Garden ll, acrylic on canvas board, the second of my two paintings currently on view in the group exhibition, INTERIOR at One Star Gallery, Melbourne. 

A woman is often compared to a set of rooms in a house where all doors open, where those who need access to her can freely do so. Yet deep in the house lies one room, the secret room where only she will enter. Deborah's work invites you to ponder on that idea of the secret part of that hidden room.

—   Wendy Stavrianos 

In recent years, the works of British Arts & Crafts designer and maker May Morris (1862-1938), younger daughter of William and Jane Morris, have infiltrated my own imagery, in particular, patterns and motifs adapted from her wallpaper and needlework designs.

My paintings are additionally informed by her friend Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (1892). The story’s protagonist, a woman isolated in a barred room while undergoing an enforced “rest cure”, becomes fixated on freeing a woman who is apparently trapped behind the wallpaper, and subsequently (as her grip on reality becomes even more tenuous), other women who are trapped there.

- Deborah Klein, August 2026

INTERIOR officially opened on Friday, 14th August. The following views were snapped during the opening celebration.

Above: Installation view. Left (from top): works by Nora Sumberg and Shane Jones. Centre (from top): works by Deborah Klein, Ann Holt and Victoria Hartcup. Right (from top): works by Lewis Miller and Victoria Hartcup.

Above and below: the opening night crowd. On the far right, above, is INTERIOR artist Michael Vale with his dog Pancho.

Above, L-R: INTERIOR artists Shane Jones, Deborah Klein and Ann Holt in front of our works. Photographer: Victoria Hartcup, whose work hangs directly above Ann.

INTERIOR

One Star Gallery

301 - 303 Victoria Street

West Melbourne VIC 3002

EXHIBITION DATES: Thursday 13th - Sunday 30th August

Closing Drinks:  Sunday August 30th, 3-5pm

Scroll down to my previous post for further information about INTERIOR, including a complete list of artists.

INTERIOR

 

Two of my paintings, including Tender Grapes ll, 2024, acrylic on canvas panel (pictured above), have been included in INTERIOR, the upcoming exhibition at One Star Gallery, Melbourne.

INTERIOR is our 8th group exhibition as co-curators. For this complex theme artists were invited to reflect on their own interior landscapes, the nature of private versus public space, the interplay between the self and the surrounding world and the essence of personal and existential spaces.

This is also inherently the place from where we share our interiority with others through art.  

- Mariella Del Conte and Katy Beale

INTERIOR

OPENING NIGHT: Friday 14th August 2026 from 6-8 pm

One Star Gallery

301 - 303 Victoria Street

West Melbourne VIC 3002

EXHIBITION DATES: Thursday 13th - Sunday 30th August

CLOSING DRINKS:  Sunday August 30th, 3-5pm

Artists: 

Adrian SPURR, Amanda FLORENCE, Amber SCHMIDT, Andrée VAN SCHEIK, Anna WHITE, Anne ALGAR, Christabel WIGLEY, David Hugh THOMAS, Deborah KLEIN, Deborah WALKER, Des HEFNER, Donna MCRAE, Donna WALSH, Elvis RICHARDSON, Emma BORLAND, Heidi YARDLEY, Hugo RACE, Jacqui STOCKDALE, Jane BURTON, Jason HARTCUP, Jenny WATSON, Jessica KRITZER, Katrina BEALE, Kim SALMON, Lewis MILLER, Lisa BARMBY, Manon ALFANO, Michael VALE, Michelangelo RUSSO, Mina YOUNG, Miriam WHITE, Nora SUMBERG, Peter GRAHAM, Prudence FLINT, Rhonda DREDGE, Shane JONES, Tiffany TITSHALL, Victoria HARTCUP, Violetta DEL CONTE, Wendy Joy MORRISSEY

Cover art for GEORGE SAND (and Me)

I’m immensely proud that my linocut Clipped Wings has been chosen to grace the cover of George Sand (and Me): A Poetic Biography by its author, Melbourne-based writer Anne M Carson.

George Sand (and Me) was recently published by Rabbit Poetry, Melbourne, as part of the Rabbit Poets Series. I’ve just received my very own copy and can’t wait to dive in. 

Image on cover: Deborah Klein, Clipped Wings, 2008, linocut printed from two blocks in one colour with watercolour hand-colouring. Diptych 56 x 38 cm each panel. Photographed by Tim Gresham. 

https://rabbitpoetry.com/about-1

https://rabbitpoetry.com/shop

https://annemcarson.com/

The Man Behind

Pictured above: The Man Behind, woodcut, 1991, 46 x 36 cm, one of my relatively early works included in Tall Tales - an exhibition of collected curiosities at Art & Collectors, Melbourne.

The woodcut is from a series of prints and drawings made in the early 1990s that focused on the lives and works of three contemporaneous writers: Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Parker and, in the case of this work, the lesser known (as an author, at least) Zelda Fitzgerald. Hovering in the background is the shadowy figure of her novelist husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

It is no secret that artists have long sought inspiration from the written word, taking narratives and orated myths and turning them into something visually mesmerising. Inspired by our current exhibition, ‘Tall Tales’, this select curation explores the enduring relationship between storytelling and visual art, proving that a picture can indeed tell a thousand words.

- Art and Collectors

Artists include: Sidney Nolan, Adam Cullen, Salvador Dali, Auguste Blackman, Mirka Mora, George Baldessin, Susan Norrie, Rona Green, Paul Compton, Howard Arkley, Constance Stokes and others. 

The exhibition can be viewed online here: https://artandcollectors.com/collections/tall-tales.

ENCOUNTERS - Exhibition Launch

Selected views from last night’s launch of ENCOUNTERS, an exhibition of works from the Arts and Heritage Collection of City of Maribyrnong. The exhibition, which is spread over two floors, was curated by Lili Belle Birchall and includes my semi-autobiographical linocut The Nature of Things (1994), an affectionate homage to my home town, St. Kilda. (Photos 1 and 5). 

ENCOUNTERS is accompanied by a free illustrated catalogue with an essay by Lilli Belle Birchall. For those who can’t make it to the exhibition, the catalogue is also available online:

https://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/files/assets/arts/v/1/general/catalogue-encounters-web-version.pdf

Photo credit Image 1: Shane Jones

ENCOUNTERS

Maribyrnong Civic Precinct and Community Hub

61 Napier Street, Footscray 

For further information about ENCOUNTERS and The Nature of Things, scroll down to Blog Post Thursday, June 18, 2026.

The exhibition runs to 29 January 2027

Private Eye - a work in progress

A sequence of developmental views of Private Eye, acrylic on canvas, a work still in progress. 

From the ongoing series, Flowers of the Femmes Fatales.

ENCOUNTERS

My linocut The Nature of Things, 1994 (Collection: City of Maribyrnong), has been included in the upcoming group exhibition ENCOUNTERS at Footscray Town Hall. 

References to fun fairs and sideshows have periodically appeared in my work since I was old enough to pick up a pencil. This is hardly surprising, as I grew up in Blessington Street, St Kilda, a short distance away from Luna Park. The historic Scenic Railway, one of its most enduringly popular rides, provides part of the backdrop to The Nature of Things.

Curated by Lili Belle Birchall, ENCOUNTERS comprises diverse works drawn from the Arts and Heritage Collection of City of Maribyrnong. 

For further information about ENCOUNTERS, go HERE. 

To peruse the exhibition catalogue, click HERE. 

ENCOUNTERS: Key information 

Location: Fitzroy Town Hall, Civic Precinct and Community Hub, 61 Napier Street, Footscray.

Viewing times: Monday to Friday, 8.30am-5pm, from 24 June 2026 - 29 January 2027.

Curator's guided tour: 11am on the first Wednesday of each month (commencing July 2026). Bookings essential via the link below.

Group bookings: Groups larger than 5 people are encouraged to book a tour via arts@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au or by calling 03 9688 0200.

MOONLIGHT SWIM

Pictured top: Moonlight Swim, acrylic on canvas. (Progress view). From the current suite of works provisionally titled Flowers of the Femmes Fatales. 

In this instance, the flower associated with my protagonist, namely a water lily, appears as a stylised motif on her bathing cap. Its design was adapted from a vintage knitting pattern that was sourced online. (See below). 

On my morning walks by the Yarra River in Melbourne I pass a similar ‘No Swimming’ sign to the one portrayed in the painting. 

Directly below are a series of developmental views of Moonlight Swim.

The work is a descendent of two early works (pictured below), both of which share similar iconography: The Third Time, 1995, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm (collection: the artist) and Not Drowning, 1996, oil pastel, 160 x 120 cm. (Collection Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW. Acquired through the Jacaranda Drawing Award 1996).

Ballarat Heritage Festival 2026

Above and below: selected highlights from the penultimate day of Ballarat Heritage Festival 2026 on Saturday, 23 May, all of it enjoyed to the fullest with my partner in just about everything, Shane Jones. 

It’s our favourite time of year in this part of the world. For us, as for many people (judging by the hoards lining the platforms of Ballarat Railway Station), the festival wouldn’t be complete without a steam train ride. 

For Shane and I, however, the day’s high point was Charmaine Channell’s imaginatively conceived and exquisitely realised exhibition, The Grand Old Dames of Ballarat at The Old Butchers Shop Gallery, in which Ballarat’s historic buildings were gloriously personified. 

Gloria - Art Gallery of Ballarat, gouache on paper (directly above), incorporates numerous works from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, including my painting, Vorticist 2, 2004. (See detail below, followed by the actual work). 

The final day of Ballarat Heritage Festival fell on Sunday 24 May. 

Highlights (in no particular order) included the legendary Ballarat People Who Promenade, of which Shane Jones and I are proud members. 

Pictured below: Promenaders founders, Megan Finlayson (AKA Queen Victoria) and Bryan Putt, followed by random views snapped during our eventful stroll through the city.

Following two views: 📷 Megan Finlayson.

Among the exhibitions we visited on day 3 were: THINKING OF PLACE IV: FLEET at Post Office Gallery (pictured below) 

- and The Coburn Collection at Ballarat Town Hall. (Last three photos). 

Ballarat Heritage Festival 2026 ran from 21-24 May.