Official Endorsement of SWAN LAKE

Yesterday afternoon I delivered additional copies of the Special Edition of my linocut Swan Lake to the Art Gallery of Ballarat shop. Many thanks to those who have already acquired the work.

Directly afterwards Shane Jones and I drove to its source of inspiration, Lake Wendouree. Upon arrival, I was approached by two representatives of the local swan community. 

Their designated spokeswan eyeballed me and proceeded to deliver a brief but impassioned monologue, which I wish I’d videotaped. I don’t understand Swanese, but like to think the speech was in support of my humble print. 

Swan Lake is once again available through the AGB shop and (I choose to believe) comes with official endorsement from the Ballarat Swan Community. 

Pictured top: Swan Lake, 2023, linocut with collage and hand-colouring. Special Edition of 30. 

Swan Lake was initially created for Whereabouts - Printmakers Respond, an exhibition of works by 56 Victorian printmakers. Curated by Rona Green, it continues at the Art Gallery of Ballarat to Sunday, February 4, 2024. 

WHEREABOUTS: Printmakers Respond

I’m delighted to be part of the much anticipated group exhibition Whereabouts: Printmakers Respond at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, opening to the public tomorrow, Saturday 18 November.

From 2pm – 3pm on the same day, curator and participating artist Rona Green will present a talk about the show. It is a ticketed event; booking information is on the AGB website:

https://www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au/event/curator-talk-rona-green-on-whereabouts

The lead-up to an exhibition of this scale is necessarily a long one. Work on my own contribution, the linocut Swan Lake, was begun in May 2022 when I was artist-in-residence at Geelong Grammar School. A couple of early progress views, snapped in the Corio Campus studio, are pictured top and directly below. The completed work will be discussed more fully in a forthcoming post, along with some exciting news.

It’s a privilege to be exhibiting with such a stellar lineup of artists. Warmest thanks to Rona for inviting me to join them and for her tireless work in bringing the exhibition together. 

Artists: Sue Anderson, Elizabeth Banfield, Matthew Clarke, Paul Compton, Miranda Costa, Fiona Davey, Rachel Derum, Mark Dustin, Grace Eve, Philip Faulks, Kevin Foley, Eleanor Franks, David Frazer, Tyronne Gietzmann, Silvi Glattauer, Jackie Gorring, Rona Green, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Greg Harrison, Bill Hay, Judy Horacek, Anita Iacovella, Kyoko Imazu, Deborah Klein, Gillian Kline, Anita Laurence, Dianne Longley, Michael Lye, Marion Manifold, Cassie May, Aaron McLoughlin, Glenn Morgan, Carnegie Muir, Angela Nagel, Billy Nye, James Pasakos, Jim Pavlidis, Catherine Pilgrim, Michael Reynolds, Cathy Ronalds, David Rosengrave, John Ryrie, Libby Schreiber, Gwen Scott, Heather Shimmen, Glen Smith, Ruth Stanton, Neale Stratford, Sophia Szilagyi, Helen Timbury, Clayton Tremlett, Peter Ward, Deborah Williams, Joel Wolter and Jessi Wong.

Whereabouts: Printmakers Respond

18 November 2023 - 4 February 2024

Art Gallery of Ballarat

40 Lydiard Street North,

Wadawurrung Country, Ballarat VIC 3350

Home Thoughts

Home Thoughts, 2022, diptych, acrylic on MDF, 10 x 10 cm (each panel).

Further to Blog Post Wednesday, March 2, here is my completed painting for the upcoming One Hundred Faces exhibition at Playing in the Attic. 

The work has since acquired a name: Home Thoughts, extracted from the title of Robert Browning’s poem, Home Thoughts, from Abroad (1845), the one that begins:

O, to be in England 

Now that April’s there…

You can read the poem HERE.

Home Thoughts, 2022 (detail, panel 1 of 2)

In recent years, swans have become emblematic of home. I grew up in Melbourne in the 1950s and 60s and well remember visits with my parents to its lush Royal Botanic Gardens. Feeding the black swans that inhabit the ornamental lakes (an activity now frowned upon) became something of a ritual. 

Home Thoughts, 2022 (detail, panel 2 of 2)

In the 1970s I lived for several years in the UK. The swans in London‘s public parks, including elegant Regent’s Park, were a glorious, gleaming white, the stuff of my childhood fairy tales. But the black swans of Australia were never far from my thoughts, and in 1980 I returned to Melbourne.

From 2011, I began dividing my time between Melbourne and Ballarat. Since moving full time to the latter in 2019, I’ve become increasingly drawn to the black swans on Lake Wendouree and visit them frequently. I now call Ballarat home, yet the white swans of England remain fixed in my memories. Home, they say, is where the heart is and mine, it seems, will always be divided in two. 

Playing in the Attic

13 Ballaarat Street

Talbot VIC 3371

Opening hours: Friday - Monday, 10 am - 4 pm

One Hundred Faces is held in conjunction with the Tiny Towns Arts Trail on Anzac Day long weekend, Friday 22 April - Monday 26 April, and continues for a further six weeks. 

Photography by Tim Gresham.

Work in progress for 100 FACES

Among the projects I’ve been juggling lately is this work in progress, intended for the annual 100 FACES exhibition at Playing in the Attic. This year 100 FACES is part of the Tiny Towns Arts Trail, which falls on Anzac Day long weekend (Friday 22 April – Monday 26 April). The exhibition will continue for a further six weeks.

In recent times, the swan has become something of a personal emblem. Originally I envisioned two self-contained images. But as can sometimes happen, the work directed its own course and soon evolved into a diptych. 

Playing in the Attic also stocks a selection of my books, postcards and zines:

Formerly Ballarat based, Playing in the Attic has recently relocated to nearby Talbot (see below). Its doors will reopen this coming Friday, March 4.

For more about the latest chapter in the history of this “curious extraordinarium of gorgeous things”, visit our sister blog, MOTH WOMAN PRESS. 

Playing in the Attic 

13 Ballaarat Street

Talbot VIC 3371

Opening hours:  Friday - Monday, 10 - 4pm

Swan Song - a progress view

On the drawing board, above right, is my current work in progress, Swan Song (ink, gouache, water soluble graphite and watercolour, 76.5 x 56 cm). The small study on the left, a finished work in its own right, was made in my tiny Melbourne hotel room last August between screenings at the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival. Shane and I had recently sold our respective houses in Melbourne and Ballarat after buying a house in Ballarat East, the first home we’ve owned together. At this watershed time, we were awaiting settlement and Ballarat was very much on my mind. As its title implies, Swan Song marks an ending, without which there can be no new beginnings. 

The black swan is a personal signifier for home, initially associated with childhood visits with my parents to the Melbourne Botanical Gardens from our family home in nearby St.Kilda. Nowadays I can’t see a swan without thinking of the black swans on Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree.

Elsa Lanchester at the BFI

Sue Verney (left) and Deborah Klein (right) flanking a banner of Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein.
British Film Institute, London, May 2014. Photograph: Shane Jones

The British Film Institute on London’s South Bank is one of my favourite haunts. I’ve been going there since I lived in London in the 1970s, not infrequently in the company of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Sue Verney. I have so many happy memories of this place. For example, it was there, many moons ago, that Sue introduced me to Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Director Max Ophüls) for which I will be eternally grateful. On another memorable occasion, I introduced Sue to what became another mutual favourite, the dazzling film noir Murder My Sweet (1944, Director Edward Dmytryk).

To my delight, the BFI interior is currently festooned with banners of Elsa Lanchester (1909-1986) an actress Sue and I have long admired. (She and I once sat in a pub in Nottinghill Gate and started a fan letter to her. We finished our drinks, but never did finish the letter – I guess we just couldn’t find the right words).

 

Black Swan, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 

12.5 x 7.5 cm

My miniature painting Black Swan, 2013, is a playful homage to Elsa Lanchester in what is arguably her most famous role: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, Director James Whale). It’s an extraordinary film and her dual performances as Mary Shelley and the Bride – particularly the latter - are simply astonishing, albeit far too brief. While still in London, I looked her up online and discovered an absolute gem – a two-part interview with Dick Cavett. In Part 1 she speaks of her late husband, the incomparable Charles Laughton. (1)

On a personal note, however, the real revelation came soon after, when Cavett asked her about The Bride of Frankenstein. In one of the movie’s best remembered scenes, the newly unbandaged bride first lays eyes on her husband to be: Frankenstein’s unrequitedly smitten monster, touchingly portrayed by Boris Karloff. Horrified, but  having no words, she begins to hiss – a scene once seen and heard, not easily forgotten. Lanchester tells Cavett that her character's reaction was based on a swan’s warning hisses and promptly launches into a marvelously spirited recreation of the sound.

Ironically, a swan wasn’t the first choice for my painting. Initially I considered other animals, including a skunk, but after much trial and error the black swan, with its downy white flight feathers was the only creature that worked compositionally. The pictorial reference to Elsa Lanchester’s portrayal of Frankenstein’s Bride was completely serendipitous - and not a little uncanny.

Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff, The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935

(1)  For Part 1 of Dick Cavett's interview with Elsa Lanchester, click HERE. 

      For Part 2 of the interview, click HERE.