Four Eyes

During the past week in Spring-deprived Ballarat, I editioned and hand-coloured the linocut Four Eyes, destined for Impressions 2012, the fundraising exhibition at the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne, which opens on November 30.

The image, a continuation of a long-term fascination with the concept of the Other, also draws from my repertoire of masks and moths. The latter, Milionia aetheria, hails from Queensland, in northeastern Australia.

Pictured above, from top: The project in various stages of development; and (immediately above) completed work: Four Eyes, 2012, linocut, hand-coloured, 15 x 20 cm (image) on Velin Arches paper 250 GSM, 25 x 38 cm, edition: 10

Lino cutting at Ballarat

It's hard to believe that only a week ago it seemed that Spring had finally decided to live up to its name; Ballarat's infamously cold Winter always hangs on with dreary, grim persistence. Don't get me wrong. There's much that I love about Winter, but this one had definitely overstayed its welcome.

Taking advantage of what turned out to be only a brief respite from the cold, I moved operations out to the sunroom. Its warmth, which to a great extent has remained even after the cool (and wet) change, is so much more conducive for cutting lino.

It was good for the spirit besides, especially when combined with musical accompaniment from the magpies in the garden. To me their song is as lyrical as Mozart, as uplifting as the sunshine - and considerably more enduring than the latter.

The linocut in progress pictured above (captured during that all too brief spell of sunshine) is destined for the exhibition/exchange Corporeal, curated by Rona Green.

On Silhouettes

As followers of this blog will be aware, I’ve recently begun experimenting with silhouette forms. Here are three more examples. Like those posted previously, they are on a small scale, although I’m working concurrently on a relatively large-scale silhouette, a linocut for Corporeal, a project curated by artist Rona Green. (More of this in the near future.)

In the meantime, I’m finding it fascinating to research the origins of the silhouette. Its varied and distinguished lineage can be directly traced to the legend of the first portrait. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (circa 77-79 AD) wrote of Dibutade, a Corinthian girl who traced her lover’s candlelit shadow on a wall before he set off on a long journey. Silhouettes have also been aligned with the black-figure vases of ancient Greece and the art of Chinese paper cutting.

Silhouettes became extremely popular in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Because they were relatively quick, simple and inexpensive to make, many amateur artists, including women, enthusiastically took up silhouette portraiture.

By the 19^th century professional artists had patented several silhouette-tracing machines. The principal behind them was little different to the method employed by Dibutade centuries before. But the drawing now served as the artist’s cartoon, which was then reduced in size using an instrument called a Pantograph or ‘Stork’s Beak’.

Even though professional silhouette artists were patronized by the rich and famous, their clients were equally immigrants who, in the days before the invention of photography, recognized a quick and economical way of commissioning a likeness to send to loved-ones in their homelands.

Recently I acquired a DVD copy of Vincente Minnelli's movie The Pirate (1948) a film I've long admired. Minnelli is an extraordinary colourist with an incredible eye for detail, for example the brief sequence where Judy Garland as Manuela sits for a silhouette portrait prior to her wedding. 

Silhouettes were originally referred to as ‘l’art d’ombre’ (shadow art) in France and ‘shades’ or ‘profiles’ in Britain. The art was re-named for Étienne de Silhouette, a French Economist, who, as Finance Minister during the Seven Years War (1756-63) imposed severe economic measures on the populace – particularly the wealthy. Consequently his name was applied derogatively to practically anything that was done on the cheap. In this instance, the name has stuck, but fortunately its original negative connotation hasn’t.

From top: 

Palmae, 2012

Cervidae, 2012

Omnivore, 2012

All acrylic on canvas, 9 x 7 cm. Photographs by Tim Gresham.

Invention of the Art of Drawing, 1793, by Joseph Benoit Suvee

Silhouette tracing machine

Drawing pantograph 

Judy Garland in The Pirate, 1948. D. Vincente Minnelli

'Vignette/Vitrine': sneak peek #2

I've just completed another work for Vignette/Vitrine. In my last post I mentioned that I believe a great curatorial theme can potentially revitalise an artist's work, as curator Megan Herring's has done for mine.

Firebrand, the unique edition book pictured above, is an experiment of sorts, and like the works previewed last week, evolved directly from this project. It's already become evident that it will be a springboard for more books; in fact I've already started to map some of them out.

To see inside the covers of Firebrand, visit Moth Woman Press artist's books and zines HERE.

The exhibition opening at Hand Held Gallery is from 6-8 pm on Thursday 20 September (see below). For those in Melbourne, I hope you can join us, or that you'll be able drop in during the show's run. For full details, scroll down to the end of my previous post.

Pictured top: Firebrand, 2012, unique concertina book, pigmented ink, acrylic paint, Khadi paper, gessoed mdf and bookbinding tape, 8.5 x 9 cm (closed); 8.5 x 45 cm (open). Photograph by Shane Jones.

'Vignette/Vitrine' sneak peek

I have some new work in the forthcoming group exhibition Vignette/Vitrine at Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne. Curated by Hand Held Director Megan Herring, the exhibition will comprise paintings, objects and works on paper. Other participating artists are Sheridan Jones, Paul Compton, Bonnie Hanlon, Priscilla Ambrosini and Megan Herring.

The miniatures encased in the wooden box pictured above are my first forays into silhouette figures. Traditionally, silhouette portraits are black paper cutouts, sometimes with selected details added in white. The painted surfaces of my works deliberately emulate these effects.

Over the years I’ve found curated projects such as this one to be exceptionally challenging and stimulating. Seeking fresh ways to address a specific brief, at least if it’s one that particularly excites my imagination, will almost invariably introduce new life and direction to my work. In fact, I’ve continued to extend and develop the silhouetted figures, and plan to take them to a larger scale.

The shadow animations of Lotte Reiniger are the primary influence for this series. As a young child, I discovered her animated fairy tales on black and white television. I was completely captivated - I had never seen anything quite so magical before - and never forgot them, although I had no idea who their creator was. 

The mystery was finally solved in 2010 when I attended a special screening at Melbourne’s Astor Theatre of Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) the world’s first extant full-length animated film. I wondered if this could be the same artist whose fairytale animations had stayed with me for all those years. Indeed she was. The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an acknowledged masterpiece, is now firmly entrenched near the top of my list of favourite films. I have my very own DVD copy, courtesy of the British Film Institute, and, thanks also to the BFI, can also regularly revisit Reiniger’s short fairytale subjects that I first encountered in childhood. When researching her work, I was elated to learn that she shared my admiration of the work of film pioneer Georges Méliès, and that Jean Renoir, another of my cinematic heroes, was a lifelong enthusiast and supporter of her work.

Images from top:

1: Vignette Vitrine, 2012, by Deborah Klein, acrylic on miniature canvases in wooden case (31 x 31 cm overall); photograph by Tim Gresham

2: Lotte Reiniger at work on a shadow puppet

3 & 4: Stills from Lotte Reiniger's animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926

5: Still from Reiniger's fairy tale animation The Golden Goose, 1944

Vignette/Vitrine

Hand Held Gallery

Suite 18 first floor, Paramount Arcade

108 Bourke Street

Melbourne Vic 3000

Telephone: (03) 9654 4006

Email: littleredfishy@yahoo.com.au

Web: http://handheldgallery.blogspot.com.au/

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-5 pm

The exhibition will run from 20 September - 20 October.

Sentinels and showboats at Geelong Gallery

Lace Face/Lace Wraith, 1997, linocut and hand stitching 
on interfacing, 123 x 61 cm. Collection: Geelong Gallery

My linocut Lace Face/Lace Wraith, 1997, is part of the current exhibition Sentinels and showboats – milestones in print collecting at Geelong Gallery. The exhibition aims to reflect the range and inventiveness of the works that have been acquired through the prestigious Geelong Print Acquisitive Award.

Lace Face/Lace Wraith was a recipient of the Award in 1997.  It was one of the final works that I completed whilst undertaking a Master of Arts (Research) Degree at Monash University in 1995-97. The motif of the tattoo, which I had explored via the Tattooed Faces and Figures series (1995-97) became ultimately a device through which to incorporate women’s sewing iconography as a signifier of women’s hidden histories. As an extension of this, I began to print onto fabric, then layer and hand stitch the imagery. At first I experimented with pre-exisiting blocks, beginning with the linocut Lace Face, 1996 (the basis for this work) before progressing to new linocuts designed specifically for printing onto fabric. The first of these was The Lair of the Lyrebird, 1997. To see this and other works on fabric, click HERE.

Lace Face/Lace Wraith reflects my ongoing fascination with the notion of the double - in this instance, the haunted double. In Scottish dialect, a wraith is a spectre or apparition of a living person; it is also regarded as a portent or omen.

Other featured artists in Sentinels and showboats include Heather Shimmen, Rona Green, Tate Adams, Raymond Arnold, George Baldessin, John Ryrie and Pat Brassington.

The exhibition continues until September 9.

Sentinels and showboats – milestones in print collecting
Geelong Gallery

Little Malop Street

Geelong Vic 3220

Tel: (03) 5229 3645

'Contemporary Australian Drawing' at Langford 120

On Saturday, August 11 we went to the Melbourne opening of Contemporary Australian Drawing: drawing as notation, text and discovery at Langford 120 Gallery. For Curator Dr. Irene Barberis, the exhibition’s original raison d'etre was to correspond with the Drawing Out conference at the University of the Arts, London in March, 2012 (see Blog Post Thursday, March 15) where the Palgrave Macmillan book Contemporary Australian Drawing #1 by Janet McKenzie was also first launched. 

For most of the 87 artists, this may be our only chance to see the exhibition. It seems to be taking on a life of its own, with plans for it to travel to the USA, Asia and Europe (dates and venues TBC.)

Langford 120
120 Langford Street
North Melbourne, 
Victoria 3051
Telephone: +61 3 9328 8558
Email: langford120@gmail.com
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday: 11 am - 5pm; Sunday: 12 noon - 5pm

The exhibition runs until September 2. 

Pictured below are some installation views:

    Above, second from right: Christopher Heathcote, who wrote the Introduction to Contemporary Australian Drawing #1

From left: drawings by Shane Jones, Deborah Klein, Tom Alberts, Godwin Bradbeer, Michael Esson and Euan Heng.
The 'masking tape' at the corners of Jones's image is a convincing example of trompe l'oeil.

More exhibits for a Wonder Room: Insect Women

This post features watercolour reproductions of several newly discovered species. These diminutive insect women will be housed in a miniature plan cabinet, which will in turn reside in my burgeoning personal Wunderkammer. They are related to the Moth Masks showcased in my blog post of June 7. 

The Wunderkammer (also known as a Cabinet of Wonder, or Wonder Room) originated in Renaissance Europe and was a forerunner of museums. Applying modern terminology, exhibits in these extensive, eclectic and frequently eccentric privately owned collections could generally be grouped under categories including Archeology, Geology, Ancient History, Art, Religious Relics, Ethnography, Antiquities and Natural History. Many examples of the latter were wondrously fantastical, for example, unicorn horns or the equally dubious Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.

Unnatural history specimens such as these were precursors to the similarly improbable exhibits later associated with P. T. Barnum's American Museum, which opened in January, 1842 - most notably, the grotesque mummified ‘‘Feejee” Mermaid pictured on the right (in reality, a monkey’s torso joined to the tail of a fish). Barnum’s museum of oddities (which also included a flea circus) was a precursor to carnival sideshows.

Since childhood I’ve been attracted to science fiction movies of the 1950s and 60s, including The Fly (1958, d. George Langelaan) and The Wasp Woman (1959, d. Roger Corman). Although not primary sources, these films have undoubtedly exerted some influence on the current work.

The series also reflects my long-term engagement with British portrait miniatures; indeed, these are among the smallest images I’ve yet produced.

This is my first sustained effort with watercolours, although I’ve been drawn to them for some time. When in London towards the end of 2011, I bought a set of Winsor and Newton Artists’ Watercolours. I’m finding the new medium challenging, hugely pleasurable – and rather addictive.

Pictured above, left: 

Adalia bipuntata insect woman

Pictured below, from top:

Bombus lucorum insect woman

Dicronorplina derbyana insect woman

Lycus insect woman

Zycrona caerulea insect woman
All works 2012, A7 (approx 10.5 x 7.5 cm) on handmade Khadi paper. 

'behind beauty's masks' by Inga Walton online

Inga Walton's article/interview behind beauty's masks - works by Deborah Klein appears in the current issue of the arts journal etchings, issue 10, the feminine, published by Ilura Press. (See also Blog Post Wednesday 11 April, which provided a link to an excerpt from the text).

I'm pleased to announce that the text can now be read in its entirety by clicking HERE.

There is another link on the right hand column of this blog, directly under the Survey Exhibition in Miniature.

For full details of etchings journals past and present, click HERE.

In(two)art at S. H. Ervin Gallery

Monarch Butterfly Winged Woman, 2010, acrylic on linen, 36 x 36 cm. Photograph by Tim Gresham

In(two)art is an exhibition of works by sixty artists – 30 artist couples – including my partner Shane Jones and I. (My work is pictured above.) 

Since its initial run at Maitland Regional Gallery, NSW from August-October 2010, In(two)art has had a longish hiatus, but it is about to begin a lengthy national tour, which will continue into 2014.

The tour begins at S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney, opening on Thursday, 5 July at 6pm and running though to 12 August. The final venue for 2012 is Orange Regional Gallery, NSW (17 August-23 September.)

In(two)art
S. H. Ervin Gallery

National Trust Centre

Watson Road

Observatory Hill

The Rocks

Sydney 2000

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Sunday 11 am–5 pm

Telephone (02) 9258 0173

www.nationaltrust.com.au

Contemporary Australian Drawing #1

On Saturday afternoon (June 16) we called into Langford 120 gallery for the antipodean launch of Contemporary Australian Drawing #1 by Janet McKenzie. The book was an initiative of Irene Barberis of Metasenta® and is published by MacMillan Art Publishing, Australia. Seventy-seven Australian artists are featured, each one's images accompanied by a comprehensive and informative essay. Janet McKenzie’s earlier publication Drawing in Australia – Contemporary Images and Ideas (Macmillan Australia, 1986) was a post-art school bible for me and I still treasure it. This exceptional new book will be an invaluable companion piece.

Directly below is a snapshot of the launch, followed by the pages that focus on my own work. Initially I was intrigued that author Janet McKenzie specifically requested these images for the book, as they are all relief prints. But then for me the lino cutter has always been first and foremost a drawing implement.

The book also includes written contributions by Irene Barberis and Christopher Heathcote. For full details, including a complete list of featured artists, click HERE.

Pictured above, from top:

Contemporary Australian Drawing #1 cover

Artist William Kelly’s opening address. Kelly also wrote the introduction to Janet McKenzie’s Drawing in Australia (1986). On far left: Irene Barberis. Centre: Jenny Zimmer, editor and designer of Contemporary Australian Drawing #1. Background: paintings by Jennifer Goodman

Book pages (1) illustration, left page:

Anonyme, 1998, linocut on Japanese mending tissue overlaid onto brown oriental paper with hand stitching, 73 x 62 cm. Collection: State Library of Victoria

Right hand page:

Sister Act, 2000, colour linocut on Japanese mending tissue overlaid onto brown oriental paper with hand stitching, 64 x 74 cm. Collection: City of Maroondah, Victoria

Book pages (2) illustration, left page:

Lydia the Tattooed Lady, 1995, linocut 89 x 60 cm. Collections: The Arts Centre, Melbourne, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, NSW

Right hand page:

Tattooed Faces Sampler, 1997, linocuts on interfacing, laid onto oriental paper and unbleached calico with hand stitching. Collection: University of Western Sydney, Macarthur

Exhibit for a Wonder-Room

Moth Masks, acrylic on papier-mâché masks - a work in progress. Individual masks: (H) 22.5 x  (W) 18 x  (D) 11 cm. Photograph by Tim Gresham 

This ongoing series of painted objects is one of several projects that, when combined, are intended to evoke a Wunderkammer, or ‘wonder-room’.

The work also draws from my personal mythology, primarily the fairy tale The Story of the Moth Masks.

A perennial inspiration is the enigmatic imagery of Surrealist artist René Magritte, whose oeuvre also encompassed painted objects. He first began painting on bottles such as those pictured here in the 1940s, which skilfully incorporate the technique of trompe l’oeil. At present, I’m reading Magritte A to Z (Tate Publishing, 2011, edited by Christoph Grunenberg and Darren Pih.) It has already become a key text. I very much share Magritte’s continuing fascination with notions of the double, metamorphosis, anonymity, disguise, the fictional character Fantômas and much else besides. The book has reminded me of how fundamental Magritte’s imagery and ideas are to my own work, perhaps more than those of any other artist.

Pictured left: Painted bottles by René Magritte, 1959

Ballarat Insects and Arachnids

The ever-evolving Myth-entomology project began in 2007. During that time I’ve steadily amassed a mountain of reference material on insects and arachnids, principally in books and journals, including the excellent Australian Geographic.  I’ve also photographed a great many examples (both living and preserved) from the extensive collections held in the Melbourne Museum, the Natural History Museums of London, New York, Berlin (see detail left) and other institutions.

Since we’ve been spending more time at Ballarat, however, I’ve been granted direct access to some wonderful free-range specimens. Better yet, I haven’t had to look very much further than my own backyard. 

The following photographs were taken in Ballarat over the last twelve months.

Images from top:

Common Rose Swallowtail Winged Woman, 2012, pencil (work in progress)

Installation view, Natural History Museum of Berlin, November 2011

Cricket

Grasshopper

Junonia villida butterfly

Nectarine blossoms with bees

Huge, exquisitely coloured specimen, possibly from the blowfly family

Orb Weaver, AKA Wheel Weaver spider

An example of the Orb Weaver's breathtaking spinning, weaving and engineering skills

Facelifts Part 2

Part of the first floor of our place at Abbotsford served as my partner Shane Jones’s studio for several years, while I worked on the ground floor. When I took a studio in the Melbourne CBD in late 2007, Shane decided to shift to my old workspace, where he found he could better control the light. The walls in the upstairs area remained hung with his artwork. It looked great, so there was no reason to move it. But when I recently set up in his previous space, I felt a little like a squatter. Shortly after my last post, we spent a solid day hanging a substantial amount of my work on the walls and transferring Shane’s paintings to the walls of his studio below. (At this point, I must shamefacedly confess he’s still storing some stuff from my former occupancy in his area. In my defence, there’s nowhere else to put it, at least until the Ballarat studio is finished.) On balance, the cupboard in my studio contains Shane’s extensive shell collection for much the same reason.

Some pictures by Shane and other artists, including Rona Green and Clare Humphries, slightly overlap my new studio (top left and left of the venetian blind in the photograph directly below.) The remaining wall space of our first floor is covered almost entirely with the works of numerous artists, in the mother of all salon hangs. You can get mighty tired of looking at your own work all day, so I’m grateful to have them all as muses.

Meanwhile, the territory of the atelier is certainly more distinctly marked, and my newly installed work (from the ongoing Myth-entomology series) should be a helpful point of disembarkation for current projects.

Photograph second from top:

Upper LHS: Painting by Shane Jones of my hands at work on the

linocut Rose Tattoos (1996). Next to it is a poster of Portrait of the 
Journalist Sylvia von Harden by Otto Dix (1926). I fell in love with the
original painting at first sighting in the Pompidou Centre in Paris in
1993. It's still one of my favourite pictures in all the world. 

Third and fourth photographs from top:

Studio views including Moth Masks and The Enchanted Hair Ornaments 
linocuts.

Facelifts

As all but the most deplorably inattentive followers of this blog will notice, it has had a major facelift. For the information of first-time visitors, it formerly comprised a black background overlaid with white and red text. Although I must confess to some nostalgia for the more immediate visual impact of the previous design, I was increasingly concerned that it was overpowering the general content, making information harder to locate and absorb.

Since its inception in 2008, the blog has been more than just somewhere to post information about exhibitions and other related events. It has increasingly become an extension of my practice, a place to collect my thoughts, share some of my interests and road-test new work and ideas. As the amount of information on the blog accumulated, I felt it needed to be made easier to read and navigate. It’s still being tweaked (I’m a terminal tweaker) but think it’s nearly there, and hope you do too.

If the blog partly serves as a virtual studio, my actual Melbourne studio has also been undergoing changes and is similarly in the process of being fine-tuned. After relinquishing my workspace in central Melbourne in 2011 (see blog post April 7, 2011) I set up in an idiosyncratic, but somewhat cave-like area of our warehouse apartment in Abbotsford. It soon proved to be way too small and dark. After a considerable amount of strategic planning and rearrangement, I’m now established upstairs in a lighter, airier, more private and infinitely more practicable space. Open-plan buildings have their benefits, flexibility being one of them. But they can present real challenges, especially when it comes to establishing boundaries between domestic and work areas. As an added bonus, our whole apartment feels more spacious, liveable and functional than it’s been since we moved here in 1998 - although it too is a constant work in progress.

Above, from top:

Partition wall of studio

Studio view. The ceramic statuette on the cupboard, top left is by David Pearson. On the far wall is a reproduction of Melody (Musica) c. 1890-1902 by Kate Elizabeth Bunce. To its right is my prized collection of (mostly) vintage combs and hairpins.