IMPRESSIONS - Art from the Australian Print Workshop

Prelude, 2018, linocut with chine-collé, 20 x 15 cm, edition: 20. Printer: Simon White.

Photo credit: Tim Gresham

If you missed the Australian Print Workshop's biennial exhibition IMPRESSIONS 2018 first time round, you’ve just been granted a second chance.

Impressions - Art from the Australian Print Workshop, which includes over 50 works selected from the original show, will shortly be on view at The G.R.A.I.N Store, Nathalia, in northern Victoria. I'm delighted that my linocut, Prelude, is among them.

Impressions - Art from the Australian Print Works opens this coming Sunday, 2 June and runs until 13 July. For further details, see the invitation directly below.

BECOMING MODERN

As an art student, back in the 1980s, I largely taught myself to make linocuts from examples in books, and Roger Butler’s catalogue of the relief prints in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat (1) was my bible. So you can imagine my excitement about BECOMING MODERN - AUSTRALIAN WOMEN ARTISTS 1920 -1950, which opened last week. Not only does it include many key works by the women artists in my still treasured catalogue, but also numerous examples of paintings, prints, sculptures and by other much admired Modernists, most them from the AGB’s own collection. 

Superlatives all the way for BECOMING MODERN and congratulations and thanks to Curator Julie McLaren, AGB Director Louise Tegart, and all those involved in putting together this superb show. I can’t wait to add the exhibition catalogue to my collection. To learn more about the show, visit the Ballarat Courier HERE.

Last Friday’s memorable opening night, for which we were invited to dress in the Modernist mode, was impeccably stage managed by AGB Marketing and Public Programs Officer, Peter Freund. In the top photo, I’m pictured with Thea Proctor’s iconic hand coloured linocut, The Rose (1927). What a thrill it was to see it in the flesh. (Photo credit: Shane Jones). 

Directly below, I'm with Shane Jones and BECOMING MODERN curator Julie McLaren. (Photo credit: Peter Sparkman).

BECOMING MODERN runs to 4 August. 

The show is a timely one in terms of the campaign 24 Hour Project: Know My Name at the National Gallery of Australia, which was also launched on Friday night. The campaign's aim is to draw attention to the work of creative women everywhere. It will take a damn sight longer than 24 hours for that to happen, but it's a positive start. As Nick Mitzevich, Director, National Gallery of Australia, states:

"We want to do more than have a conversation about equality, we want to take action and address the significant imbalance before us... The value of women artists in this country needs to be elevated as we are a thriving, diverse culture that should be celebrated.”

(1) Roger Butler, 1981, Melbourne Woodcuts and Linocuts of the 1920s and 1930s, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, Vic. 

Good news

In recent news, these things happened: whilst walking Alice last week, Shane received an extremely welcome phone call regarding his warehouse apartment in Abbotsford, which has been up for sale. Scroll through to see the happy outcome.

Of course, Alice is convinced it was the photo of her on the real estate sign (see below) that clinched it, and to be honest, the agent (whose advice throughout the whole process has been right on the ball) was keen to include her in at least one shot.

Thank you so much to everyone who left messages of support and encouragement when we placed the Abbotsford place on the market at very short notice, our fingers tightly crossed.

We celebrated with a celebratory glass of bubbles in the ACMI cafe before last night’s Cinematheque screening.

We’re still hard at work preparing my Ballarat house for sale. Meanwhile, we’re a step closer to moving into our Art Deco dream house and making Ballarat our permanent home.

Public Works

This piece by Bronwyn Watson focusing on my work Vorticist 2 (2004, collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat) appears in the Review section of today’s Weekend Australian. What a delightful and unexpected surprise. 

Many thanks to the friends who alerted me to the article and to Art Gallery of Ballarat Director Louise Tegart for her perceptive comments about the work. (Click on image for a clearer view).

FRANKENSTEIN'S WOMEN artist book: cover art in progress

Pictured below is a developmental view of the cover art for my upcoming artist book Frankenstein's Women, a project that began life in 2018, the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein.

For further progress views of the lino block, visit Moth Woman Press HERE.