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?

Anonymous Woman with a Lace Collar

Pictured above: recently completed Anonymous Woman with a Lace Collar, acrylic on canvas, diptych, 35 x 12.5 cm. (See also previous blog post, Tuesday, January 26).

As previously mentioned, Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497 - 1543) has long been one of my favourite artists and three of his works, Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (collection National Gallery, London) Portrait of a Young Woman (collection Mauritshuis, Den Haag), reproduced below as postcards collected from past travels, followed by Christina of Denmark (collection National Gallery, London) were very much in my mind’s eye when I made this work.

My partner, Shane Jones, shares my admiration for Holbein. We were extremely fortunate that our visit to London in 2006 coincided with Holbein in England, an extensive retrospective at Tate Britain. A room guide of the exhibition is HERE. 

Some years ago, when my latest stay in London was coming to an end, I had a few hours to spare before heading for the airport. My friends Sue Verney and Bev Murray asked me how I’d like to spend my precious remaining time. Without hesitation, my request was to call into the National Gallery and revisit Holbein’s Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling and Christina of Denmark one last time.

Some of Shane’s and my greatest pleasures during lockdown were the films and illustrated lectures presented by the National Gallery’s YouTube channel, which we were able to project onto our home cinema screen. Their channel, which is highly recommended, is HERE.

For an illustrated talk on Christina of Denmark by Susan Foister, Deputy Director and Director of Collections at the National Gallery, go HERE.

The National Gallery is also home to one of Holbein’s most celebrated masterworks, The Ambassadors. Susan Foister discusses the work HERE.

How I miss London and its museums, which over many years have provided infinitely rich and varied sources of inspiration for my work. There is no substitute for seeing artworks and one’s friends in the flesh, but thanks to YouTube and regular phone conversations via WhatsApp with Bev, Sue and another steadfast and inspirational London-based friend, Barbara Britton, at least it feels as if the distance between us has shrunk a little. 

A series of developmental views of Anonymous Woman with a Lace Collar follows. The most significant difference between the final image and the finished work, top, is the suggestion of volume in the bottom panel through the slight sheen in the subject’s garment (not entirely clear in my photo). The textbook on lace in the second view below, a gift from Bev, has been an invaluable reference for this series. I’ll talk more about my sources for the lace imagery in a future post.

Opening night of 20[2020]

Featured here are two captured moments from last night’s opening of 20[2020] at Tacit Galleries. (See also my previous post). 

In photo 1 (top), I’m pictured with my painting New Horizon. (Photographer: Dmetri Kakmi, with artistic direction from Megan Backhouse). 

Photo 2, above, shows artist Jim Pavlidis (left) and model Leigh Hobbs (right) flanking Jim’s portrait of Leigh. (Note the portrait-within-a-portrait of the subject's immortal creation, Mr Chicken).

20[2020] concludes on 15 March.

New hang at the Art Gallery of Ballarat

As 2018 was drawing to a close, curator Julie McLaren and her crack team undertook the mammoth task of rehanging the staircase area overlooking the foyer of the Art Gallery of Ballarat. I'm a long-time advocate of the salon-style hang, both for aesthetic and practical reasons (Shane Jones and I employ it extensively in our Melbourne and Ballarat homes and studios), and find the finished result, highlighted in this post, quite stunning.

The installation focuses entirely on figurative works. I'm honoured to have my painting Vorticist 2 (pictured above, top row, fourth from right) included, particularly as it is surrounded by so many works from the collection that I hugely admire. Among them is former From the Bower colleague Loris Button's poignant self-portrait The artist in her middle years: Memento 1, 1995 (pictured above, third row from top, second left).

Vorticist 2 was first exhibited in the solo show Tease (2004) at Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne. In 2008 it was part of the touring survey show Deborah Klein: Out of the Past 1995 - 2007 and the work is featured in the standard school text book Art Detective by Michelle Stockley (2017).

When Vorticist 2 was acquired back in 2005, I never dreamed that one day I would be living in Ballarat and, as Shane and I tentatively start the slow, complex process of cutting ties with Melbourne, that we’d come to regard it as home.

Vorticist 2, 2004, oil and acrylic on linen, 122 x 91 cm. Collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat.

This group hang extends an invitation to engage with the works, both singly and collectively, something not all salon-style arrangements successfully achieve. It's virtually impossible to do the new installation justice here, or to more than suggest the myriad of connections and dialogues between works that it instigates.

The staircase area is directly opposite the main entrance to the Art Gallery of Ballarat, providing a tantalising indication of what is in store. On several occasions I've spoken to past visitors who admit they've never climbed the staircase to the second level, which is where some of the finest works in the collection, as well as some terrific curated shows, are displayed. I've no doubt that this striking new hang will lead all but the chronically uncurious irresistibly upwards and onwards.

To read a short essay on the history of the salon-style hang, visit the Polk Museum of Art HERE.

Admiring the new hang at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Photo credit: Shane Jones

View from the top of the stairs (left)

View from the top of the stairs (right)

A list of the above works, section by section, follows directly. Click on individual pages for a clearer view.