INTERIOR Part 2: Opening Night

Pictured above: Secret Garden ll, 2024, acrylic on canvas panel, 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 

During the lockdowns I first discovered the existence of British Arts & Crafts designer and artisan May Morris (1862-1938), the younger daughter of William and Jane Morris. In the following months, motifs and patterns gleaned from her extraordinary wallpaper, textile and embroidery designs began to infiltrate my own work. 

My paintings in INTERIOR 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 caught behind the wallpaper, and subsequently (as her grip on reality becomes even more tenuous), other women who are trapped there.

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 Horace.

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

INTERIOR was curated by Mariella Del Conte and Katy Beale. Scroll down to my previous post for further information, 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.