Easter Greetings

TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

- John Keats, 1795-1821*

*To Autumn was written on September 19, 1819 and first published in 1820. The poem is in the public domain. 

Easter is traditionally associated with springtime, a time of rebirth and regrowth. But in southern climes it falls in autumn, that “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. I have always admired the John Keats poem, which encapsulates so much of what I love about this time of year - although at present it feels more like winter!

The Pre-Raphaelites and their contemporaries, whose works I’m currently revisiting, recognised Keats as a kindred spirit. Several of them, including John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Arthur Hughes, John William Waterhouse, George Frederick Watts and Walter Crane, depicted scenes from his verses. In 1894 Kelmscott Press published The Poems of John Keats with elaborate wood-engraved borders and initials designed by William Morris (pictured below).

I’m flying to London in mid-September, the first month of the English autumn and the very same month in which Keats composed To Autumn. I’ve just remembered that Keats House in Hampstead is only minutes away from where I’ll be staying. A return visit is long overdue.

Meanwhile, Happy Easter everyone.

Pictured top: Deborah Klein, Orange Tree, 2023, (study), acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 10 x 10 cm. The work, which takes an identically titled embroidery designed by May Morris as its point of departure, is part of One Hundred Faces 2023 at Playing in the Attic, Talbot, Vic. The exhibition opens on Saturday April 22 and runs to the end of May. 

BMI Christmas Maker and Community Market

I’m a proud member of no less than two iconic Mechanics’ Institute libraries: Melbourne Atheneum Library (see yesterday’s post) and Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute Library in Sturt Street, Ballarat. 

Scribe, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 cm (pictured top) and Candlelight, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 cm (pictured below) are two of several miniature silhouette paintings in the making for the latter’s BMI Maker and Community Market on Sunday, December 18, 9 am - 2 pm. 

My table will also include a selection of Moth Woman Press books and zines. I always look forward to this annual event, but this will be my first time as an actual participant. If you’re free, do drop by and say hello.

Vestibule exhibit at Queenscliff Gallery

 

A sweeping view of the imaginative new hang of my paintings in the vestibule at Queenscliff Gallery. Click on the bottom right corner of the video screen for an enlarged view.

Credit for footage and photos: Soula Mantalvanos. 

 

For Eileen

 

As Rückenfigur, my solo exhibition at Queenscliff Gallery, dwindles down to its final days, I’ve curated a selection of the paintings that take their point of departure from the doily collection of my late aunt, Eileen Elizabeth Klein. The works have been reproduced on this blog before, but this is the first time I’ve gathered them together in one post.

The above image is cropped from a photo snapped at the exhibition opening by Queenscliff Gallery’s co-director, Soula Mantalvanos. In honour of my aunt, I’m wearing a vintage cardigan and sweater she knitted at least forty years ago. I received numerous compliments about her handiwork on the day. I’m sure she would have been delighted!

Below is a photo of Auntie Eileen taken in the 1950s, very possibly earlier. The inscription on the back in my aunt’s distinctively forceful handwriting identifies the store in the background as “Rondel’s”. A little online detective work locates Rondel’s (presumably long gone) womenswear store at 110 Market Street, Sydney.

As her brother, my late Uncle Tom, used to say “Eileen had style”. 

Directly following are my paintings and the doilies that inspired them.

Patience, 2022, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm

Idyll, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm

Primavera I, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 37 x 15 cm

Primavera lI, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 37 x 15 cm

Lady in Waiting, 2022, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 55.5 x 22.5 cm

Flora, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm

Butterfly Net, 2000-2020, acrylic on 4 canvases, 35 x 25 cm

Rückenfigur concludes on Sunday, July 10, at 4 pm. 

Waiting in the Wings

Move over, sun, and give me some sky

I’ve got me some wings I’m eager to try

I may be unknown, but wait till I’ve flown

You’re gonna hear from me.*

Pictured above, clockwise: Hidden Wings; Waiting in the Wings; Flight of Fancy; Night Butterfly

Each work: 2021, acrylic on canvas, 12.5 x 12.5 cm.

They have just landed at Queenscliff Gallery for my latest solo show, Rückenfigur,

current to July 10. (Gallery hours: 10 am - 4 pm. Closed Tuesdays).

The Opening Event is this Sunday, 26 June, 2-4 pm. Your invitation is HERE.

QUEENSCLIFF GALLERY | P 03 4202 0942 | 

A | 81 Hesse Street Queenscliff VIC 3225 

*You’re Gonna Hear From Me

Music by André Previn, lyric by Dory Previn

Varnishing Day

Varnishing paintings is an activity that usually strikes terror in my cowardly heart, but with an exhibition fast approaching, I just had to get on with it.

Pictured yesterday: the final varnish freshly applied to the painting component of my forthcoming solo show at Queenscliff Gallery, thankfully without mishap. 

Below: the last of the varnished works at day’s end. Click on images for a clearer view. 

The paintings are now ready for the gallery walls. You can preview all the work HERE, but I hope you’ll have a chance to view it in the flesh. Online is no substitute for the real thing, and a day trip to picturesque seaside Queenscliff is highly recommended.  

DEBORAH KLEIN - RÜCKENFIGUR 

Recent paintings and drawings 

DIARY DATES  

Opening event: Sunday Jun 26, 2pm – 4pm

Exhibition run: Jun 23 – Jul 10, 2022

Gallery hours: 10 am - 4 pm. Closed Tuesdays.

QUEENSCLIFF GALLERY 

P 03 4202 0942 | A 81 Hesse Street Queenscliff VIC 3225

Your invitation to RÜCKENFIGUR

  

Attached is an invitation to Rückenfigur, my upcoming solo show at Queenscliff Gallery.

The representation of the feminine personae has long been a subject of art history. The female visage has featured in various depictions in this history – obscured, averted, deformed, glorified, domesticised, dehumanised. In her latest exhibition, artist Deborah Klein builds on this artistic canon of the feminine, offering us the idea of Rückenfigur – "the figure seen from behind.”

Weaving together sewing iconography derived primarily from handmade doilies inherited from her late Aunt Eileen, and motifs of knots and braids, Klein stitches together a story that is as complex as the knots that she depicts; a story of the perpetual outsider where our current state of disconnection – from ourselves, each other and the natural world – is rendered palpable.

- Queenscliff Gallery

The Opening Event is on Sunday June 26 from 2 - 4 pm. I do hope you can join us.

Rückenfigur runs from Jun 23 – Jul 10, 2022.

Gallery hours: 10 am - 4 pm. Closed Tuesdays.

Queenscliff Gallery 

P 03 4202 0942 | A 81 Hesse Street Queenscliff VIC 3225 

Progress amidst distractions

Above and below are progress views of my current work, followed by photographic evidence of why I’m not further along with it.

Despite every distraction Alice (and life in general) throws my way, I’m confident all paintings will be ready in time for Rückenfigur, my solo show at Queenscliff Gallery, opening June 23 and running to July 10.

New Year’s Greetings from my Ballarat studio

Directly above is the painting on my studio workable at year’s end. Near completion and as yet untitled, the diptych is acrylic on canvas and measures 37.5 x 15 cm. The work will be part of my solo show, Rückenfigur, at Queenscliff Gallery, running from June 23 - July 17, 2022. 

Meanwhile, behind me as I worked was this: 

Pictured above: Alice, devoted studio cat and Muse.

As always, thanks for finding time to visit my Art Blog, especially during the extremely challenging year that was 2021. Wishing you all a safe and happy 2022.

LACED

 

Pictured top: A hand-held view (to indicate scale) of the recently completed Laced, destined for my solo show, Rückenfigur, at Queenscliff Gallery in 2022. 

Laced, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 12.5 x 12.5 cm

On the table easel

 

Pictured above: my present work in progress, followed by earlier developmental views. The lace collar was initially sketched in with a white watercolour pencil, enabling marks to be easily erased and altered during the drawing process. As yet untitled, the diptych is acrylic on canvas and measures 35 x 12.5 cm.  

Current work

Pictured above and below are a series of progress views of my current painting, a diptych, acrylic on canvas, 55 x 20 cm. The work is intended for Rückenfigur, my solo show at Queenscliff Gallery. An update on the exhibition will be posted shortly.

In the top view, the work is all but complete, save for some tweaking here and there and an appropriate title - something that doesn’t always come easy. The lace pattern in the second panel is loosely based on a vintage collar in one of several reference books I’ve accumulated through the years. It was drawn on the canvas freehand. This can sometimes do my head in, but in this instance, I found the entire process surprisingly meditative, particularly when it came to adding the areas of fine detail. 

Click on images to enlarge. 

Primavera II

  

Pictured above: Primavera II, acrylic on two canvases, 37.5 x 15 cm. The vintage embroidery on the left by my late Aunt, Eileen Klein, was the basis for the motif on the subject’s collar. The painting is near completion, save some minor tweaking. 

A progress view is below.

Primavera II and its companion work, Primavera I, as it’s now titled, were developed in between the films we streamed from the recent Melbourne International Film Festival. 

Primavera I has since been completed, and work on Primavera II proceeded without incident or interruption, with one exception - the takeover of my work chair by Alice (see below). Sucker that I am, I didn’t have the heart to move her. Instead, I rearranged the studio chairs, while Alice steadfastly refused to vacate “her” seat. In my small, cluttered space, it was a lot more complicated than it looks. Alice was not impressed. Her expression (third photo below) says it all. 

Visit Spring is here, Blog Post Wednesday, September 1, to see the then-untitled Primavera I and developmental views of both works.