A virtual reunion

 Ex Votive Offerings, (RHS above), recently seen in In the company of Morris at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, is reunited here with its companion pieces, Ladies Glisten and Spillage, if only digitally. All three works were created for the 2002-2003 Arts Victoria Touring Victoria exhibition Common Thread that also featured works by Catherine Pilgrim and Shane Jones - a happy and rewarding exhibiting experience if ever there was one.

Originally intended as linocuts, the prints were transferred onto silk screens by Rebecca Mayo after the size in the Chinese silk rejected the block printing ink. 

L-R top:
Ladies Glisten, 2002, Screen print, artificial pearls, hand stitching on sized Chinese silk laid onto interfacing, 120 x 40 cm. Collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat;

Spillage, 2002, Screen print, buttons, hand stitching on sized Chinese silk laid onto interfacing, 120 x 40 cm. Collection: LaTrobe University, Bendigo;

Ex Votive Offerings, 2002, Screen print, needle threaders, hand stitching on sized Chinese silk laid onto interfacing, 120 x 40 cm. Collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Channelling Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) was the point of departure for my painting, Coil (2001, acrylic on seven canvases, 60.5 x 55.5 cm).

The spiral is a recurring symbol in Vertigo, beginning with Saul Bass's celebrated opening title sequence. Even the tightly coiled coiffure of Madeleine/Judy, as portrayed by Kim Novak, mimics a spiral. One of the film's most indelible moments occurs in the dreamlike Legion of Honour scene, in which Madeleine contemplates the portrait of her ancestor, Carlotta Valdez, by whom she is supposedly possessed.

Taking its cue from Vertigo, the spiral is a repeated motif in Coil. Given its connection to Hitchcock's film, it seemed appropriate to hang the painting at the entrance to the cinema room in our house, alongside its companion work, Net (2001, acrylic on three canvases, 131 x 40.5 cm).

To complete the scene, Alice channels Kim Novak in San Francisco's Legion of Honour Museum.