Recent activities

Today’s post features selected highlights from the past several days, beginning with the opening night last Thursday of A SEAT AT THE TABLE: A Celebration of Women Artists at Artists & Collectors in Melbourne, followed by the Saturday afternoon launch of the seventh and final ONE HUNDRED FACES at Playing in the Attic in Talbot in regional Victoria. Our weekend was capped off with the Twelve Minute Play Festival at Creswick. 

In the top image, I’m pictured at Art & Collectors with my three paintings (L-R): Rose Arbour, Birds of a feather and Lady Justice ll, all 2024, acrylic on canvas panels. Directly below my works is Three Heated Figures, 1991, oil on board, by Dorothy Braund. (Photo credit: Shane Jones). 

Thank you to Angela Tandori and the crew from Art and Collectors for inviting me to be part of the exhibition and for making us feel so welcome.

The exhibition continues to 16 May.  

Every year Shane Jones and I declare ONE HUNDRED FACES at Playing in the Attic, which opened on Saturday afternoon, is the best one ever, and it really does seem to get better with every passing year. Apologies for the seemingly unavoidable reflections in the above installation view.

The work looked great, there was a fantastic turnout, a truckload of sales and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. 

That’s Playing in the Attic’s Trudy McLauchlan directly above. Below, exhibiting artists Shane Jones and Loris Button take in the exhibition after the crowd has thinned out. 

ONE HUNDRED FACES can be viewed around the clock in the main window of Playing in the Attic until 25 May.

Sunday afternoon found us at Creswick, a short drive from Ballarat, for Creswick Theatre Company’s second Twelve Minute Play Festival. Over the course of an afternoon, 12 new Australian plays were presented, each of them twelve minutes in length. 

The eighth play, THE GIFT, a dark comedy by our friend, Gaye Britt, was perfectly paced, with a delightfully unexpected twist at the end. All twelve plays were terrific by degrees, but Gaye’s was one of the absolute standouts. Another of my favourites was the touching Either/Or by Kate Lawson. In contrast to Gaye’s play, it moved me to tears. 

Gaye is pictured above, centre, shortly before the house lights dimmed.

Outside Creswick Courthouse Theatre, the venue for the Twelve Minute Play Festival (shown above), I was thrilled to discover The Magic Pudding Playground, which is centred on one of my favourite books, The Magic Pudding, by Norman Lindsay. 

Creswick was the original home of the legendary Lindsay family, several of whom became celebrated artists and writers, including Lionel, Norman, Percy, Daryl and Ruby. 

My late father, Ron Klein, was also born there. I sometimes wonder whether he, his siblings and parents ever crossed paths with the Lindsays. I guess I’ll never know.

Opening tomorrow: ONE HUNDRED FACES

 

Cultivated Poppy, 2025, pictured top, is the sister work of Lady of the Camellias, 2025 (directly below, right, my previous post and HERE). 

Both works examine the symbolic link between certain flowers and the femme fatale in film noir, and both were made especially for the annual exhibition ONE HUNDRED FACES, opening tomorrow at Playing in the Attic. 

Perhaps more than any other flower, the Poppy, with its sedative qualities that deaden the senses of her hapless victims, is the perfect match for this Belle Dame sans Merci. 

ONE HUNDRED FACES 2025 opens on Saturday, 26 April, at 2 pm. The opening event is always enormous fun. I hope you can join us.

Playing in the Attic 

13 Ballaarat Street

Talbot VIC 3371

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

The exhibition runs to 25 May. 

Studio news

Pictured above and below: Alice B. Cat hitches a ride on Shane Jones for a closer look at a selection of my recent paintings laid out on the work table.

The would-be connoisseur was quickly discouraged when she got a too little too paws-on (although it could be argued that she was wearing white gloves).

Undaunted, the felon proceeded to attempt a break-in of the studio cupboard.

The paintings will be exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne from 4 - 21 December - minus paw prints, hopefully. 

Opening of ONE HUNDRED FACES 2024

Some snippets of yesterday afternoon’s delightful opening of One Hundred Faces at Playing in the Attic in Talbot, snapped later in the day when the crowd had thinned out. 

That’s me directly above, second from right, along with participating artists Loris Button, Shane Jones and Tiffany Titshall. 

The views below include Libby Drew, Scott Bain, fellow exhibiting artist, Christine Hickson, Trudy McLauchlan (Proprietor of Playing in the Attic and One Hundred Faces Curator), artist Shane Jones and canines Zelda and Iris.

The weather was perfect and, as always, the show looked great. Thanks for having us, Trudy, and for all your hard work. 

Now, what to make for next year’s One Hundred Faces?

One Hundred Faces 2024

Pictured top: Masked Australian Painted Lady, acrylic on canvas on board, 10.3 x 10.3 cm, part of the annual One Hundred Faces exhibition at Playing in the Attic in Talbot. The mask is based on the Australian painted lady butterfly (Vanessa kershawi). 

Masks seem to have emerged as a central theme in my works for this year’s One Hundred Faces, although it wasn’t intentional. Masked Australian Painted Lady is pictured above on the easel with its companion work, Cat Woman.  

The exhibition opens on Saturday 27 April at 2pm and runs to the end of May.

Photo credit for first image: Tim Gresham.

For Auld Lang Syne

As another bittersweet year hurtles to a close, step inside my studio for auld lang syne.

We may be more than halfway through the twelve days of Christmas with a new year fast approaching, but in the studio, time stands still.  

Opening celebration of BLUE PERIOD

Here are a few snapshots of the joyous opening celebration of BLUE PERIOD at One Star Gallery, Melbourne, on the evening of Friday 1 December. It was terrific to meet up with fellow artists, among them, Tiffany Titshall, (pictured below), and reunite with others I haven’t seen for far too long, in particular, Ann Holt, who I’ve known since my long ago and far away St Kilda days. (Ann, who’s pictured in the third view with Shane Jones) reckons this is the first time we’ve ever exhibited together, and I’m pretty sure she’s right).

The works of artists who couldn’t be there, including Lisa Barmby, Deborah Walker, and Linda Gibbs, whose stunning landscape is hanging next-but-one to mine in the installation view below, also made an impact. (That’s Jane Burton’s photograph in between my works and Linda’s). It was also great to see another old friend, film maker Donna McRae (pictured above right).

Pictured above are my three paintings Recollections, Waiting and Idyll and directly below, BLUE PERIOD curators Mariella Del Conte and Katrina Beale introduce writer and performer Clare Larman (final view). Clare, who memorably launched the exhibition with an evocative blue-themed poem written especially for the event, writes like a painter. 

Scroll down to my last post for a complete list of BLUE PERIOD artists. 

The exhibition runs to 17 December. 

Gwen John - Art and Life in London and Paris

 

The gentle, contemplative, quietly compelling paintings of Gwen John (1876-1939) occupy a special place in my personal pantheon. I’m still pinching myself that Gwen John - Art and Life in London and Paris, a major exhibition of her work at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, coincided with my visit to the UK. I thought I knew her work fairly well, but the exhibition includes numerous works, including drawings, rough sketches, studies, landscapes, streetscapes and still lifes I’ve never seen before, even in reproduction. 

It’s a brilliant, immersive exhibition, beautifully presented. A visit to Chichester is always a treat and if the gallery cafe is full, lunch at the nearby Cathedral cafe is highly recommended.

Pictured top: 

1 Outside Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. (Photo credit: Bev Murray)

Pictured below:

2 Young Woman Holding a Black Cat, c. 1920-25

3 Dorelia in a Black Dress, c. 1903-4
4 Self-Portrait with a Letter, c. 1907-9
5 Chloe Boughton-Leigh, 1910
6 Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris, 1907-9
7 The Seated Woman (The Convalescent) c. 1910-1920
8 The Convalescent c. 1923-24
9 The Brown Teapot, 1915-16
10 Woman in a Red Shawl, late 1910s-1920s