APW George Collie Memorial Award Exhibition: D’oyley Face

 

D'oyley Face, 1997, linocut, 46 x 36 cm, edition 15

Back in 2020, I was a recipient of the Australian Print Workshop’s 2020 APW George Collie Memorial Award, which acknowledges “Artists who have made significant and enduring contributions to the field of Australian Printmaking.”* (See also previous post). 

Traditionally, the award presentation is accompanied by an exhibition in the APW Gallery. This was originally scheduled to open on June 13, 2020. Then along came the pandemic. The rest, as they say, is history, although sad to say, COVID is still very much a part of our lives. 

The APW George Collie Memorial Award Exhibition and Presentation will finally forge ahead on Saturday August 6 from 2 - 4 pm. The 2020 Award also recognises the work of one of my printmaking and literary heroines, the late Barbara Hanrahan, alongside more recent recipients whose works I also revere, but whose names I’m not yet at liberty to divulge. It’s a tremendous honour to have my name linked with theirs and eminent past recipients Alun Leach-Jones and Kevin Lincoln (2019), Graham Fransella and Euan Heng (2018), Kitty Kantilla and John Wolseley (2017), Bea Maddock and Jennifer Marshall (2016), Grahame King and Jan Senbergs (2015) and Rick Amor and Noel Counihan (2014).

As part of the award, a special print edition has been commissioned by the APW. My hand coloured linocut entitled I wished on the moon, 2022, printed by the APW’s Simon White, will be part of the exhibition, along with a selection of earlier works. The majority are from the APW’s archives. I’ve only just noticed that one of them, D’oyley Face, 1997, pictured top, incorporates fragments of hand embroidered doilies formerly owned by my late Aunt, Eileen Klein, including the doily that was the basis for my painting, Primavera l, 2021 (see below). I had completely forgotten about this early reference to my aunt’s home textiles collection that has inspired so much of my recent work.

Eileen Klein’s doily (left) with Primavera I, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 37 x 15 cm 

The APW George Collie Memorial Award Exhibition has been a long time coming. I can’t believe it’s happening at last and hope you’ll save the date. The exhibition runs from Saturday‬ ‪August 6 to Saturday October 1, 2022. 

*From the APW website 

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. 

Primavera I

 

Primavera I, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 37 x 15 cm, recently debuted in Rückenfigur at Queenscliff Gallery. It’s one of several paintings in the show that take their inspiration from my late Auntie Eileen’s doily collection. This group of works are particularly close to my heart and will be the focus of a forthcoming post. 

For those unable to catch Rückenfigur IRL, you can view it in 3D HERE.

Photo credit: Tim Gresham.

Lady in Waiting

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

Photo credit: Tim Gresham 

Many years ago, I inherited a swag of vintage doilies from my late aunt, Eileen Klein. I had no real use for them, but didn’t have the heart to take them to the thrift shop. For as many years again, they languished in various drawers and cupboards in the flats and houses I’ve inhabited over the decades. Lately, however, they’ve taken on a new life. In Lady in Waiting, 2022 (pictured top) and several other paintings in Rückenfigur, my upcoming solo show at Queenscliff Gallery, they’ve become the basis for my protagonists’ decorative collars and shawls. 

A couple of developmental views are below:

Lady in Waiting nearing completion, May 2022

Progress view of Lady in Waiting with doily and Hans Holbein postcards, April 2022

Images on the postcards pictured above: A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling, Jane Seymour and Portrait of a Woman from Southern Germany by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Holbein’s work has been a source of inspiration since my late teens when my mother presented me with a book of his drawings as a birthday gift.

Rückenfigur opens at Queenscliff Gallery on June 23 and runs to July 10, 2022.

The Opening Event is on Sunday June 26 from 2 - 4 pm.

Queenscliff Gallery 

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

For further information, including an invitation to Rückenfigur, scroll down to my previous post.

Spring is here

Pictured above: a new work for a new season, as yet untitled and not quite finished in time for the first day of spring, but close to it. 

The work is acrylic on two canvases and its dimensions are 37.5 x 15 cm. The vintage needlework to its left is by my late aunt, Eileen Elizabeth Klein. I inherited many of her doilies and placemats (but sadly, not her sewing skills) and have incorporated design motifs from several of them into recent works. One of them is HERE. These and other related paintings will be exhibited at Queenscliff Gallery in the near future. 

A series of progress views of the diptych follow directly. They include its sister work (also currently untitled and considerably further away from resolution).

A work for International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day 2021. In celebration, here is my newly completed work, Wonder (2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm). The lace collar was adapted from one of the doilies I inherited from my late aunt, Eileen Klein (see second progress view below).

Recently I used another doily from her collection as the basis for my subject’s collar in the diptych, Idyll. To view the work, click HERE. 

Idyll

At the start of the new year, the upper panel of the work pictured above (Idyll, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm) was one of two works in progress on my worktable. (See Moving Forward, blog post Sunday, January 3, 2021 HERE). 

In the weeks that followed, I’ve worked simultaneously on other paintings, and have only recently brought this work to some kind of resolution. At this stage, it’s anticipated that further changes, if any, will be minor ones. 

The majority of the protagonists in its companion works are characterised by their decorative lace collars, all of them based in varying degrees on examples found in the books on the history of lace I’ve accumulated over more than two decades. The collar portrayed in this painting is an exception. The basis for its design is one of the doilies I inherited many years ago from my late Aunt Eileen. Now somewhat the worse for wear, it’s shown in the second and final progress view below. I’m planning to similarly utilise aspects of the patterns in other inherited doilies in future works.