A peep inside… Part 3: WOMEN WITH WINGS

Another peep inside one of the books on the studio table in my recent blog post, A tabletop of artist books.

Pictured above and below: Women with Wings, 2010, concertina book with linocuts and rubber stamps, a rare volume freshly out of mothballs in readiness for the forthcoming exhibition ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery.

Photography: Tim Gresham.

To learn the secret of the mysterious masked Moth Women, grab yourself one of the last remaining copies of the zine, The Story of the Moth Masks, pictured below.

ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS

Deborah Klein, Elizabeth Banfield and Theo Strasser

South Gallery, Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne.

The exhibition runs from September 20 - October 7 2023.

A peep inside… Part 2: LEAVES OF ABSENCE

A peep inside another of the books on the studio table in my blog post of Tuesday August 22, A tabletop of artist books.

The unbound artist book LEAVES OF ABSENCE, 2017, continues my exploration of women’s hidden histories, of which far too many remain tantalisingly buried. Its point of departure is the Australian Gold Rushes, a historic period from which Chinese women were all but absent. In 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3 per cent of the population. Of these, 38,337 were men, compared to only eleven women. Despite considerable delving on my part, the lives of the women who remained in China remain a mystery. 

The following is an edited version of my speech at the launch of LEAVES OF ABSENCE at Melbourne Atheneum Library in November 2017. 

… In Newstead alone, there were over 3000 Chinese miners. The Eucalyptus leaves in LEAVES OF ABSENCE were sourced there because of their significance to the project but also because of their singular shapes - in part the result of interventions by my 'insect collaborators', the Eucalyptus tip bugs. So invaluable was their contribution, they rate a special mention on the book’s colophon page.

In my work, silhouettes are principally metaphors for marginalization or invisibility... 

…The enchanting fairy tale films of German born silhouette animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger (1889-1981) are a key influence on all my work with silhouettes. Influences entirely specific to this project include early photography and silent film. Contrary to popular belief, not all of the first moving images were in black and white. In many cases, a series of coloured filters were applied, usually to indicate mood, while other directors, including one of the masters of early film, Georges Melies, employed artists, usually teams of women, to painstakingly hand colour his films frame by frame.

... My initial research included a study of historical Chinese women’s hairstyles. Reduced to shadow forms, however, the women could equally be from any place or time, including the present.

To read the full speech, my response to Marguerite Brown’s marvellous opening address, visit Moth Woman Press HERE.

Images 1-7 above: LEAVES OF ABSENCE with selected page views.

Image 8 below: Installation view at Melbourne Atheneum Library in 2017, followed by Image 9: Hand-painted eucalyptus leaves, the basis for the illustrations in the book. 

LEAVES OF ABSENCE is part of the three-person show ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, opening on September 20. Full details are below.

A peep inside… PROGENY

 

This is the first of a series of peeps inside some of the artist books on the table in my last post, beginning with Progeny, 2018 (one-of-a-kind concertina book, hand-lettered and drawn in India ink, pigmented drawing inks and gouache, with hand-stitching and cloth cover with debossed text).

Progeny was made in 2018 when I was artist-in-residence at Melbourne Atheneum Library for Melbourne Rare Book Week. 2018 also marked the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This was the impetus for my artist book. 

In Mary Shelley’s novel, the “monster” promises to vanish from Dr Frankenstein’s life if he will build him a female mate to ease his loneliness. Frankenstein reluctantly complies, but at the last minute, he destroys her. 

My book takes its title from the following quote:

“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart”.

— Mary Shelley, from her Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, first published January 1, 1818.

Progeny will shortly be resurrected in 

ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS
Deborah Klein, Elizabeth Banfield and Theo Strasser
South Gallery, Stephen McLaughlan Gallery 
The exhibition  runs from September 20 - October 

A tabletop of artist books

In the studio this rainy afternoon, a tabletop of artist books selected for the upcoming three-person exhibition ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS. I will be in the UK throughout its entire run, so am posting about it well ahead of time. 

ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS
Deborah Klein, Elizabeth Banfield and Theo Strasser 
South Gallery, Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne

Running from September 20 - October 7.

For additional information, scroll down to Blog Post Tuesday, August 8, or go HERE.

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.

Coming event: ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS

I’m very excited to be exhibiting with book artists extraordinaire Elizabeth Banfield and Theo Strasser in ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS in the South Gallery at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery next month. 

ARTIST BOOKS & FOLIOS runs from September 20 - October 7.

The Opening Event is from 2-4 pm Saturday September 23.

Further details to follow soon. Meanwhile, we hope you’ll save the date!

Lowering the flags

The flags for Pre-Raphaelites Drawings and Watercolours and In the Company of Morris at the Art Gallery of Ballarat are still flying, but not for much longer. The exhibitions close tomorrow, Sunday, August 6. 

I must walk around with my head in the clouds because I came upon these banners only recently, when taking what was once a regular shortcut. The last time my work was reproduced on a flag was - let me see now - never. 

Keeping company with William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites and so many other artists whose works I’ve long admired (many of them for over half a lifetime) has been an unforgettable experience. Never in a million years could I have imagined a happier outcome than this. Back in 2021 when my painting Three Women was exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery amidst a seemingly endless spate of lockdowns, I was convinced it would never again see the light of day.

In the Company of Napier and Christian Waller

 

An unexpected surprise on the opening night of In the Company of Morris at the Art Gallery of Ballarat last May was discovering that my print Ex Votive Offerings had been included in the exhibition. I didn’t even spot the work until my partner Shane Jones pointed it out to me. 

I’m very short-sighted and literally went weak at the knees when I moved in closer. My work is flanked by two of my favourite artists, Christian Waller and Napier Waller. Their works have had an inestimable, enduring influence on mine that began when I taught myself to make linocuts at art school in the 1980s. (Ironically, my chief reference was an old, much treasured catalogue by Roger Butler, published by the Art Gallery of Ballarat). Seeing my work hung alongside theirs was a moment I’ll never forget. It has meant the world and I can’t begin to thank Art Gallery of Ballarat Director Louise Tegart and exhibition designer Ben Cox enough (and anyone else at the gallery I need to thank).

I’m looking forward to visiting the twin exhibitions Pre-Raphaelites Drawings and Watercolours from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and In the Company of Morris one last time before they close on Sunday, 6 August, and hope you can make it along too. 

Top image: With my work Ex votive offerings, 2002, screenprint on sized Chinese silk hand-sewn with needle threaders, at the launch of In the Company of Morris. (Photo credit: Shane Jones); 
Second Image: Installation view; 
Third image: Christian Waller, Design for Window - St James’s Church, Ivanhoe, 1938, watercolour and Design for mosaic - Salus Mundi, circa 1938, gouache and metallic paint on paper;
Fourth image: Napier Waller, The questing Knight, 1923, linocut and Hit, 1923, linocut;
All works: Collection Art Gallery of Ballarat.

LAST DAYS: Pre-Raphaelites Drawings & Watercolours and In the Company of Morris

Recently Shane Jones and I met up with two friends from Melbourne who had come to Ballarat to see In the Company of Morris and Pre-Raphaelites Drawings & Watercolours at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. They were keen to get to the gallery dead on opening time and asked if we would walk around the exhibitions with them. We arrived slightly before they did. It was the only time I’ve seen the outside of the gallery completely devoid of parked cars and people. It didn’t last long. Even as the doors were opening, cars started pulling up and people began streaming into the building. But not before I got this shot. 

Our friends loved both exhibitions and are still talking about them. They finish their run on Sunday August 6. I’ll be sad to see them go - and I must admit it has been quite a thrill - and an enormous privilege - to have my work included on the marquee over the past few months. If you haven’t seen the exhibitions or are planning a return visit, don’t miss out.

Foreign Flora

Today is the anniversary of the birth of another Pre-Raphaelite Sister, the artist and poet, Elizabeth Siddal (25 July 1829 -11 February 1862). 

Perhaps best known as the model for the painting Ophelia, 1852, by Sir John Everett Millais, or as one of the PRB “stunners”, or as wife and muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or as the doomed heroine of her own tragically short life, Elizabeth Siddal was also a gifted artist in her own right. Her works were admired and acquired by John Ruskin in her lifetime and she was the only female artist whose work was included in the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, London, in 1857. We can only speculate on what she could have achieved had she lived longer. 

I’m very excited to see The Rossettis at Tate Britain in September. Focusing on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his sister, renowned poet Christina Rossetti, and Elizabeth Rossetti (née Siddal), the exhibition gathers together the most comprehensive collection of Elizabeth Siddal’s work in over 30 years, including rarely seen watercolours and key drawings. 

Meanwhile, much closer to home, a small selection of her exquisite drawings are currently on view at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & watercolours from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The exhibition runs to 6 August.

I’ve long been captivated by Elizabeth Siddal’s work and to varying degrees her influence has infiltrated many of my own paintings and works on paper, including Foreign Flora, linocut, 15 x 11.5 cm. (Pictured top). The tattoo is is based on a floral motif in an embroidered table cover designed by May Morris. 

Limited numbers from this series are available in the Art Gallery of Ballarat shop throughout the exhibition’s run. 

Pictured above: Ophelia, 1852, by Sir John Everett Millais, oil on canvas. Collection: Tate Britain. (Public domain). 

Pictured above: Self-portrait by Elizabeth Siddal, 1854, oil on canvas, 9-inch circle.  Private collection. (Public domain). This intimate, introspective painting of the artist as she saw herself is a far cry from her portrayals as a PRB “stunner” or, as she has been described in more recent times, “the world’s first supermodel”.

See me

A slightly belated tribute to Georgiana Burne-Jones, who was born on 21 July, 1840. 

Georgiana (née Macdonald), Lady Burne-Jones (1840-1920) was the wife and later, biographer, of eminent Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Movement painter, Sir Edward Burne-Jones.  

A promising artist herself, Georgiana Burne-Jones began art classes at the Government School of Design in South Kensington and later became a student of Ford Maddox Brown. 

For some time, she continued to draw, embroider and sew costumes to be utilised in artists' paintings. 

In 1861, she was employed as a tile painter for the decorative arts firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., but after the birth of her son, Philip, in October of the same year, became a full-time caregiver.

On the lot of women artists, Georgiana Burne-Jones wrote: 'It is pathetic to think how we women longed to keep pace with men, and how gladly they kept us by them until their pace quickened and we had to fall behind'. 

Pictured: See me, 2023, acrylic on canvas panel, 10 x 10 cm. The face decoration is based on a detail from the embroidered table cover Australia, c 1888, designed by May Morris, the younger daughter of Georgiana Burne-Jones’s close friend and confidante, William Morris.

Farewell to Louis

On Wednesday evening, 12 July, in an elegant Victorian house in East Melbourne, Shane Jones and I were privileged to be among the crowd of admirers invited to bid farewell to retiring CEO of The Johnston Collection, Louis Le Vaillant.

Unlike some of the artists who were in attendance, I only had the pleasure of working with Louis once, back in 2018, in the four-person exhibition, From the Bower/Patterns of Collecting at the Johnston Collection, but it is high on my list of most memorable exhibiting experiences. Sadly, fellow Bower artists Carole Wilson and Loris Button were unable to join us, but I was thrilled to reunite with Bower artist, Louise Saxton. 

Unfortunately the top image is all I have to show for what was a hugely enjoyable evening, but I’ve managed to unearth a handful of photos, snapped in 2018 when we were in the process of planning the installation of Patterns of Collecting at the Johnston Collection, with expert advice and assistance from Louis. 

Pictured below, L-R, are Loris Button, Carole Wilson, Louis Le Vaillant and Louise Saxton. 

Pictured below: Loris Button, Louis Le Vaillant and TJC museum guides.

As the incomparable Louis journeys onwards in search of new adventures, (full to overflowing, we sincerely trust, with donkeys and cats), he will be sorely missed by all of us who were lucky enough to work with him.

The Return of Saint Joan

In contrast to the 10 x 10 cm studies I’ve been developing lately, here is a considerably larger scale painting I’d all but forgotten about: The Return of St Joan, 1994, oil on canvas, 137 x 51 cm. (Private collection).

At the time of making this work, I was living in St Kilda, my hometown; however, an Australia Council residency in Paris in 1993 had left its mark. During the residency, I’d become fascinated by female saints in Medieval and early Renaissance art. On an early morning walk to St Kilda Beach, I noticed the distant turrets of Luna Park shrouded in mist, looking for all the world like a castle in a Medieval landscape. By the time I got home, the seeds of this painting had been sown.

The Return of St Joan was one of three of my works that were included in the 1998 exhibition Luna Park and the Art of Mass Delirium at Heide Museum of Modern Art (the others were an oil pastel drawing, St. Kilda Warrior, 1996 and a linocut, Luna Park Face, 1996). The exhibition ran from 8 December, 1998 - 21 March, 1999. 

MORRIS AND ME forum at the Art Gallery of Ballarat

Here are a few snaps from Morris and Me, last Saturday’s forum in the Oddie Gallery at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. It was such a pleasure to share the stage with Glenn Barkley and Kate Rohde, along with AGB curator Kiri Smart, who stepped in as facilitator at very short notice. 

We couldn’t have wished for a warmer reception. Several people I know travelled long distances to join us (and there was I thinking no one would come). I can’t begin to tell you how much it meant to see you there. In the second last photo below, I’m pictured with Melbourne painter Alicia Cornwell, with whom I went to art school in the 1980s. We’ve seen each other since then, but not in decades. In the final view, Glenn is pictured with his earthenware pot Morris of the ferns with parrot, 2023. 

Thanks a million to all of you who came and to Peter Freund, AGB Marketing and Public Programs Officer, and everyone else at the Art Gallery of Ballarat who helped make it happen.  

Photo credit for images 1-7: Shane Jones.

The forum Morris and Me took place at the Art Gallery of Ballarat on Saturday, 15 July. The joint exhibitions In the Company of Morris and Pre-Raphaelites Drawings and Watercolours from the Ashmolean  Museum, Oxford continue to Sunday, 6 August. 

May Morris and Me

On Saturday July 15 I’m joining forces with fellow In the Company of Morris artists Glenn Barkley and Kate Rohde at the Art Gallery of Ballarat for what we trust will a lively discussion about the influence of William Morris (and in my case, his brilliant daughter May Morris) on our works.

In the lead-up to the forum, titled Morris and Me, I’m taking occasion to revisit the individual panels in the triptych, Three Women, 2021 (pictured top) that features in In the Company of Morris and the three May Morris embroideries that are integral to the work.

Pictured below:

Image 1: First panel of Three Women;
Images 2-3: Australia, c 1888 (detail and full view), the embroidered table cover by May Morris that was the basis for my protagonist’s tattoo;

Pictured below:

Image 4: Second panel of the triptych Three Women;
Images 5-6: A fragment from Autumn and Winter, c 1895-1900, May Morris’s magnificent embroidered panel (in my opinion, one of her finest works) inspired the central figure’s tattoo;

Pictured below:

Image 7: Third  panel of Three Women;
Images 8-9: Vine Leaf, c 1890 (detail and full view), an embroidered table cover by May Morris, was the basis for the anonymous figure’s body art.

The panel discussion Morris and Me is on Saturday at 2 pm and will be facilitated by curator Christopher Menz. Tickets include entry to the exhibitions Pre-Raphaelites Drawings and Watercolours and In the Company of Morris. 

Bookings are at https://bit.ly/3qCKDnk.