WAYS OF BEING - Last Days

 

Where has the time gone to? My solo exhibition WAYS OF BEING at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery is now in its final days.

For those who haven’t had a chance to call in, the gallery will be open every day until Christmas Eve.  

Gallery hours:

Saturday December 21, 11 am-5pm 

Sunday December 22, 1-5 pm

Monday December 23, 1-5 pm

Tuesday December 24, 1-5pm (final day)

Image on invitation: Birds of a Feather, 2024, acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. 

To view the fully illustrated exhibition catalogue, go here: https://deborahklein.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2024-12-11T11:14:00%2B11:00

WAYS OF BEING - Illustrated Catalogue of Works

 

Deborah Klein

WAYS OF BEING

December 4-24 2024

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne 

ARTIST STATEMENT

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.

- T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (from Four Quartets), 1942

In my latest solo exhibition Ways of Being, I pick up the threads of the pivotal Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures of 1995-97 and, to a lesser extent, the insect women and masked women series (originating in 2000 and 2007 respectively), to weave entirely new narratives.

The original iteration of the Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures provided frameworks for the development of new iconography, a substantial amount of which underpins my paintings and works on paper to this day. Among the key works to emerge at this time were those focusing on “the gentle arts” - women’s handiwork created specifically for the domestic realm. As Rozsika Parker posits in her pioneering book, The Subversive Stitch (1996), women’s histories are recorded on fabric, not on stone. 

In my earlier works, body decorations inspired by textile arts memorialised the countless anonymous women who created those textiles. Over the passing years, however, a handful of names and faces have begun to emerge - foremost, for me, British Arts and Crafts textile and embroidery designer (also wallpaper and jewellery designer, embroiderer, socialist and educator), May Morris. Her exquisite designs were points of departure for several paintings and linocuts in the exhibition. 

For over two decades, many of my protagonists have resolutely turned their backs on the viewer. Drawing from the age-old motif of Rückenfigur, a compositional device most closely aligned with German Romantic painting, these solitary figures remain intrinsic to my work. They are represented in the exhibition by the Decorated Women, a suite of seven linocuts, and the hand-coloured linocut I Wished on the Moon, 2022. The latter work was created in collaboration with Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, as part of the 2020 APW George Collie Memorial Print Award.

Essentially Ways of Being (a pun on Ways of Seeing, John Berger’s seminal 1972 television series and the subsequent book by Berger and others) is what W. Somerset Maugham referred to in his homonymous memoir of 1938 as The Summing Up. As I aim to piece together disparate fragments from over 40 years of practice, seeking, perhaps, some kind of finality, fresh ideas and the possibilities of new directions persistently insinuate themselves. To quote again from T. S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding: 

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning. 

Deborah Klein

December 2024

CATALOGUE

PAINTINGS 

Eye Candy, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Acanthus, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Climber ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Tender Grapes ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Masked Australian Painted Lady ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm.

COLLECTION: CITY OF WHITEHORSE.

Tudor Rose ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Cat Woman ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Blossoms in the tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Spring and Summer, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Orange Tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Spring growth, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Rose arbour, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Tulips ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Birds of a feather, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Lady Justice ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Secret garden, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm 

Olive and Rose, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Springtime, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Horned  Poppy ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

A book by its cover ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

SMALL WORKS

See Me, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

In flower, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Tudor Rose I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

A book by its cover I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Horned Poppy I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Climber I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm.

Lady Justice I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Tulips I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Hand embroidery, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm. 

Tender Grapes I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Chinoiserie, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm. PRIVATE COLLECTION.

Blossoms in the tree I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

LINOCUTS

I wished on the Moon, 2022, hand-coloured linocut, 34.5 x 26.8 cm, ed. 20. PRIVATE COLLECTION. Works from edition still available.

Decorated Women, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Maid of Honour 2, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. Works from edition still available.

Foreign Flora, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. Works from edition still available.

Tangled Tulips, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. Works from edition still available.

Sunflower, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Other, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. Works from edition still available.

A Snail’s Pace, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. Works from edition still available.

Photography by Tim Gresham

FOR ALL ENQUIRIES, CONTACT:

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery

Level 8 Room 16 The Nicholas Building

37 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000

(on the corner of Flinders Lane)

Telephone: 0407 317 323

Email: st73599@bigpond.net.au

Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday, 1 - 5 pm

Saturday 11 am - 5 pm

& by appointment

During the run of WAYS OF BEING, the gallery will also be open 

from 1-5 pm on Sunday December 22 , 

Monday December 23 and Tuesday December 24 

Eye Candy

Pictured top: a recent studio view. The newly completed painting, Eye Candy, is on the worktable, and looming over it is a poster of the work that was its primary influence, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926, by Otto Dix, one of my favourite paintings in the entire world. 

In 1993, I was awarded a three-month Australia Council studio residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. I still recall the thrill of coming upon Dix’s original on my first visit to Centre Pompidou. Until then, I’d only ever seen it in reproduction.

Subsequently I purchased the poster from the gallery shop. Ordinarily I’m not one for souvenirs, but wanted to memorialise that indelible moment of discovery. When I unrolled the poster back in my studio at the Cité, however, I discovered a serious fault in the colour reproduction and had to return it the following day. I felt ridiculously proud that I was able to explain the situation in my less than basic Council of Adult Education French - although I guess the flaw was fairly self-explanatory. The poster was cheerfully exchanged for the one shown here and it has been with me ever since. 

The hairstyle in a vintage photographic portrait that I’d had on file for ages was the basis for my protagonist’s bobbed hair. Serendipitously, the woman in the photograph is Otto Dix’s wife, Martha Dix. It has been cropped from the original image, a double portrait of Martha and Otto Dix, 1925, by August Sander. You can see it HERE. 

The Dadaesque eyepiece in Eye Candy takes its cue from Sylvia von Harden’s iconic monocle.

Directly below: an earlier studio view with Eye Candy still a work in progress. 

Eye Candy, 2024, acrylic on canvas board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm will be part of WAYS OF BEING, my solo exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, running from December 4-24.

For further information on WAYS OF BEING, scroll down to my previous post.