Deborah Klein's Art Blog: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Re-enchantment

My work can soon be glimpsed in Re-enchantment, an immersive journey into the meaning of fairy tales that will screen on ABC television. The works shown here are those that were originally chosen, but I have no idea if they all made the final cut. Even if they don't, I thought it was an interesting selection, and show them here in their entirety. Hair has been a prominent symbol in my work for well over a decade. The Long, Long Braid, 2001 (pictured left) also illustrates my own fairy tale The Girl in the Tower, the opening story in my book There was once… The collected fairy tales (published by Moth Woman Press, 2009).

Re-enchantment is written and directed by Sarah Gibson and produced by Sue Maslin. It will be officially launched on Wednesday 2 March at 5pm at the Palace Cinema 3, Adelaide as part of the Adelaide Film Festival. Further details are on the Adelaide Film Festival website: http://tix.adelaidefilmfestival.org/session3.asp?sn=Re-enchantment

The Re-enchantment website will also be launched on March 2:  http://www.abc.net.au/tv/re-enchantment/

For those in Melbourne, ACMI are hosting a two-day Symposium called Fairy Tales Re-Imagined on the 10 and 11 March:

http://www.acmi.net.au/fairy-tales-reimagined.aspx

The Sydney launch will be on the evening of Thursday 24 March at the Surry Hills Library.

Re-enchantment will go live on Wednesday 2 March in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/re-enchantment/

The television interstitials and radio programs will be broadcast on ABC TV and ABC Radio National throughout the month of March.

Re-enchantment’s regular updates can be followed on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Re-enchantment/125219870872528

And on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/reenchantment

Pictured above:
The Long, Long Braid, 2001, acrylic on canvas 141 x 40.5 cm. Private collection

Swaddle, 2001, acrylic on canvas,

136 x 40.5 cm. Private collection

Column, 2000, acrylic on canvas,

20 x 15 cm. Private collection

Enough Rope, 1999, acrylic on canvas,
30 x 17.5 cm.

Private collection

Scheherazade, 2004, oil pastel, 55.5 x 57.5 cm.

Private collection

Witness, 2004, oil pastel, 122 x 76.5 cm
Private collection

Vorticist 2, 2004, oil and acrylic on canvas,

122 x 91 cm. Collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Art Vault Exhibition at Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery

Winged Women, 2010, linocuts, individual works 30 x 30 cm

Collection: The Art Vault. Photograph by Tim Gresham

Ian Tully, Director of Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, has curated an exhibition focusing on artists who have worked at The Art Vault. Included in the exhibition are the Winged Women linocuts, the blocks of which I worked on during my first residency at The Art Vault in July 2009. Other artists in the show include ex de Medici, Rosalind Atkins, Mike Parr, John Cattapan, Martin King, Shane Jones and John Young.

It's good news that Swan Hill Gallery has re-opened its doors. Recently it was forced to close temporarily due to concerns about rising floodwater from Little Murray River.

The exhibition opened on 12 February and concludes on 27 March.

The Art Vault Exhibition

SWAN HILL REGIONAL ART GALLERY  

Horseshoe Bend

Swan Hill

Victoria 3585 Australia  

Telephone: 03 5036 2430

Facsimile: 03 5036 2465 

artgal@swanhill.vic.gov.au

Gallery hours: Tues - Fri 10 am - 5 pm; Sat - Sun 11 am - 5 pm

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Mildred Pierce in the Art Gallery of New South Wales

As I continue grappling with fledgling imagery in the studio, a work from the increasingly distant past has reappeared:

Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier, 1995,
linocut, 65 x 45 cm

Only recently I learned that Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier, a key work from the Film Noir linocuts of the mid 1990s, has been in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales since 2009.

Its primary inspiration was the film Mildred Pierce (1945, directed by Michael Curtiz) which in turn was based on the novel by James M. Cain. The setting has been transposed from its original locale of Glendale in Southern California to my home town of St. Kilda, where I was living when I worked on the series.

Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier is also in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Deakin University and the Art Gallery of Ballarat. It was included in the 2008 touring Survey Exhibition Deborah Klein - Out of the Past 1995-2007 which was curated by Diane Soumilas.

My affection for Film Noir has never wavered. (See February 12 post More Moth Woman Vigilantes on Moth Woman Press Artist's Books and Zines Blog.)