Some outtakes from my last photo shoot:
Pictured above: work in progress that will soon be part of Backstories, my solo show at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, running from July 21 - August 7. Further details will follow soon.
On a separate note, as of July 1, for reasons best known to themselves, Google will remove the ‘Follow by Email’ option on all blogs, so followers of this blog will no longer receive email notifications of my new posts.
At present, I’m not clear about whether Google intends to substitute an alternative. I can’t see any way around this, except to provide links to future posts via my Instagram and Facebook accounts. These can also be accessed under Other solo sites in the right hand column of this blog.
I’d like to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt gratitude and thanks to the many loyal followers of this blog. Your support means a great deal. I do hope you will still drop by from time to time.
Pictured here: a couple of snaps from this afternoon’s buzzy opening of ONE HUNDRED FACES at Playing in the Attic in Sturt Street, Ballarat. Apologies for the reflections - I’m afraid my photo doesn’t do the installation justice. The general consensus is that it’s even stronger and more varied than last year’s show - and that’s saying something. You’ll just have to come along and see for yourselves.
It was lovely to chat (albeit briefly) with other participating artists, including some old friends I haven’t seen for far too long.
Thanks so much to exhibition curator, Playing in the Attic’s proprietor, Trudy McLauchlan, for your vision and the tremendous effort involved in putting it all together.
Pictured above: Peter Sparkman (left) and Christine Hickson (right). Peter is the editor and designer of the new Ballarat Arts Alive online magazine, ALYVEN KIIKEN (Alive & Kickin’, Winter edition, 2021), which includes my recent post on ONE HUNDRED FACES, as well as being chock-full of other arts-related news. The magazine is HERE. To read my Blog Post, dated Tuesday, 22 June, scroll down, or click HERE.
ONE HUNDRED FACES concludes on 18 July
I’m happy to have learned that the photographic work pictured above, Covert Covid 1: Self-portrait in Anaxidia lactea Moth Mask, (2020-21) has been selected for inclusion in STAGES: photography through the pandemic, an evolving exhibition in the MGA Atrium Gallery, Monash Gallery of Art.
Extract from my artist statement:
The work, one of a suite of twelve, was begun during the relatively early days of lockdown, when the efficacy of face masks was still under debate. It was only later that mask wearing became recognised as an essential protective measure, one that remains firmly embedded in our daily lives.
STAGES: photography through the pandemic runs from 1 June – 29 August 2021
Monash Gallery of Art - The Australian Home of Photography
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill Victoria 3150 Australia
Phone +61 3 8544 0500
Hours:
Tuesday - Friday: 10 am - 5 pm
Weekends: 10 am - 4 pm
Pictured from top:
Woman with Ruby Earrings, 2021, acrylic on canvas panel, 10 x 10 cm
Young Woman with Ringlets, 2021, acrylic on canvas panel, 10 x 10 cm
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ONE HUNDRED FACES
Playing in the Attic, 119a Sturt Street, Ballarat, Vic 3350
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 10 am - 4 pm
ONE HUNDRED FACES is part of the 2021 Ballarat Winter Festival, which runs from 26 June - 18 July. The installation can be viewed 24 hours a day until the festival’s end.
My linocut Lace Face (A/P, 1996, 46 x 30 cm) has been included in the group exhibition The Eyes Have It: featuring works from the Warrnambool Art Gallery Collection.
A response to mask wearing, quarantining, closed borders and isolation during the time of COVID-19, this exhibition presents images and objects that explore the themes of observation and monitoring; restrictions on movement and the effects of anxiety. Artists have long dealt with aspects of alienation, uncertainty and social disruption. Though the works in this exhibition were made without the direct influence of COVID-19 they interact with our moment in time and are curiously prophetic.
- From Warrnambool Art Gallery’s website.
I’m delighted to see my work is hanging next to Pierced, a linocut by my old friend, Heather Shimmen. Coincidentally, Shane Jones and I have a copy of this print in our own collection. Shane also has a work in The Eyes Have It, a self-portrait titled Painting Drawing (2010), pictured below. You can see additional installation views on his blog post of Monday, 14 June.
At this stage, we haven’t had a chance to see the exhibition, so we’re indebted to
Kathryn Ryan for the photos. Kathryn runs a fantastic Instagram/Facebook page, Warrnambool Region Arts, which has just celebrated its first anniversary. You can find it on Instagram HERE and on Facebook HERE.
The Eyes Have It opened on Saturday, 5 June and runs to Sunday, 26 September 2021.
26 Liebig Street
WARRNAMBOOL Vic 3280
Phone: +61 (0)3 5559 4949
email: gallery@warrnambool.vic.gov.au
Opening Hours:
Monday - Friday: 10am - 5pm
Saturday - Sunday: 10am - 3pm
Public Holidays: 10am - 3pm
Closed Christmas Day and Good Friday
In recent years I’ve become an inveterate devourer of podcasts, and one of my favourites is a relatively new kid on the block, GATHER with Minerva’s Books & Ideas. The series was conceived and created on traditional Wadawurrung land here in Ballarat by its presenter, Amy Tsilemanis (https://www.instagram.com/amytinderbox/?hl=en).
Amy describes GATHER as: “Audio adventures exploring the lives of books, and the ideas they ignite and illuminate. Each episode is themed and unfurls from a book or books, and features the work of artists, writers, musicians and thinkers”.
Fairy Tales Continued, the most recent episode, includes my fairy tale, The Moth and the Butterflies. (The link is here: https://gather.buzzsprout.com/1474177). The story is superbly read by Ballarat-based artist and musician, Ellen Sorensen (http://www.ellensorensen.com/). Over the years, I’ve been gratified and delighted by other aural presentations of my stories, including a wonderful reading by Amy herself (see her Instagram post of August 20, 2020) and am slowly coming to the realisation that, like fairy tales of old, they are best savoured when read out loud.
The Moth and the Butterflies is part of my illustrated anthology, There was once…The collected fairy tales, currently available at that “curious extraordinarium of papery delights”, Playing in the Attic (https://www.instagram.com/playing_in_the_attic/), which you’ll find nestled in the historic Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute building in Sturt Street, Ballarat.
A link to all episodes of GATHER is here: https://gather.buzzsprout.com/1474177
The website for Miverva’s Books is here: https://minervasbooks.com
The Minerva Books Facebook and Instagram pages are here: https://www.facebook.com/minervasbooks/ and here: https://www.instagram.com/minervasbooksandideas/?hl=en
The edition of my linocut Lace Face (1996) sold out many years ago, but lately it seems to have taken on a life of its own. See Blog Post Tuesday, March 23, 2021. The work will also be included my APW George Collie Memorial Print Award show at the Australian Print Workshop in March, 2022.
In January 2021, I was approached by a Brazilian publisher seeking permission to reproduce Lace Face on the front cover of a special edition of the biography Memorial de Maria Moura by Rachel de Queiroz. The book has since been published, and this is the result.
Maria Lacerda de Moura (1887-1945) was an author, educator, political activist and social reformer whose significance in both Brazilian and feminist history can’t be stressed highly enough. You can read about her HERE and HERE.
The biography, which is in Portuguese, is published by Grupo Editorial Record, Brazil in a limited edition of 2000. The website for Grupo Editorial Record (Record Publishing Group) is HERE*. For more about the special edition, go HERE* and for the Kindle and paperback versions of the book, go HERE*. (*Note: these sites are in Portuguese. The new edition will not be published in English).
Memorial de Maria Moura was first published in 1992. A biography of its author, Rachel de Queiroz, (1919-2003) is HERE.
To view the linocut, Lace Face, visit my website HERE.
Pictured above: a corner of my freshly tidied and slightly rearranged studio, with a place for everything and everything in its place - well, almost. (Click on image for a clearer view).
Over the past several weeks, all of the work surfaces had become increasingly cluttered and it became difficult to think clearly, much less create work in there. My workspace is quite small and a build-up of disorder can render it practically unworkable. Fortunately Alice was on hand to supervise (although I suspect she preferred the former chaos). Next to her is a copy of The Gentle Arts - Two Hundred Years of Australian Women’s Domestic and Decorative Arts by Jennifer Isaacs, a much treasured reference book I’ve been revisiting during the making of a current work. (More about this in a future post).
The room actually needs a total overhaul in order to make better use of storage, but at least this is a start. On the bookshelves a postcard of Virginia Woolf, author of the seminal A Room of One’s Own (as indeed this one is) has followed me from studio to studio. It was purchased many years ago at one of my favourite places, London’s National Portrait Gallery. The shelves were built by Shane in an alcove that previously housed an inbuilt dressing table.
Melbourne begins a further seven days of lockdown from midnight tonight, while restrictions in regional Victoria will be carefully eased. Who knows what the next seven days will bring? In these uncertain times, I’m extremely thankful for this room of my own and for the most part, this is where I’ll be.
Four of my homo-insecta watercolours, pictured above and below, are on display on the mezzanine level of the gallery. (A fifth watercolour, Ladybird Woman, had just flown away to be part of a private collection in Sydney). That’s Shane and I viewing the remaining works in the photo second from bottom below. (Photo credit: Theo Mantalvanos).
Following directly from my last post is a preview of the two works that are part of the upcoming exhibition, INTO ME SEE at The One Star Gallery in West Melbourne.
The construct of INTO ME SEE (scroll down to read the exhibition brief, or click HERE) underpins much of my own work, which focuses primarily on women’s hidden histories. One of its dominant motifs is the ‘figure seen from behind’, or Rückenfigur. A perpetual outsider, the Rückenfigur reflects a mood of quietude and isolation. Like the protagonist of New Horizon, 2020, pictured top, (1) she invites us to share her journey, learn her story and see the world through her eyes, to the extent that we become as one with her.
The Rückenfigur addresses a particularly divisive time in our history, when our state of disconnection - from ourselves, from each other and from the natural world - seems greater than ever before.
My drawing Maid of Honour, 2020, pictured above, (2) alludes to the centuries-long tradition of women stitching their stories onto fabric in place of ink and paper. The pattern on the anonymous subject’s elaborately tattooed back draws parallels between the tattoo and embroidery needle. It is based on a detail from Maids of Honour, an embroidery pattern designed by May Morris (1862-1938). Morris, who characteristically drew her inspiration directly from nature, was a significant contributor to the Arts and Crafts Movement, a prolific embroiderer, textile, wallpaper and jewellery designer and educator. Even now, however, her designs are sometimes attributed to her more famous father, William Morris.
INTO ME SEE is curated by Mariella Del Conte. Exhibiting artists are: Camilla Gold, Deborah Klein, Deborah Walker, Georgia Janetzki, Heidi Yardley, Jane Burton, Jenny Watson, Katrina Beale, Lisa Barmby, Lisa Roet, Mina Young, Polly Borland, Sophia Hewson, Susan Wyers, Victoria Hartcup, Edwina Preston and Anna White.
Opening night: Thursday, 20 May, 6 - 8 pm
The One Star Gallery, 301-303 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 3003
Gallery hours: 3 - 7 pm Monday - Friday, or by appointment: 0432357537
Email: onestargallery@gmail.com
Instagram: @onestarlounge and Mariella Del Conte: @salonhang
INTO ME SEE runs from 19 May - 12 June
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Pictured from top:
(1) New Horizon, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 50.8 x 50.8 cm
(2) Maid of Honour, 2020, ink, watercolour and water soluble graphite on Khadi paper, 42 x 30 cm
(3) Mick Harvey, AKA Neo Arts, co-founder (with Katrina Beale) of The One Star Gallery, pictured here with exhibition curator Mariella Del Conte as they begin the installation of INTO ME SEE. My two works are in the foreground. In the background, L-R, are works by Deborah Walker and Heidi Yardley. Mick Harvey’s Instagram page is HERE.
Ester Perel, a leading couple’s therapist, describes the concept of intimacy in our times as ‘Into Me See’, where we ask another to enter into a relationship with our inner life.
What part does intimacy play in art and how much of themselves do artists reveal in their work? How do we, as viewers, connect to artworks; how do they enter us and touch us? Can we call this connection intimacy?
At a time when attention spans are waning and media - including the sharing of intimate details of our lives - scrolls at a nauseating speed, how do we as artists invite the attention and trust of the viewer in exchange for meaning, validation and substance (Into me see)?
Intimacy offers respite from isolation and meaninglessness but it requires time - time to look, connect and unconsciously/ subconsciously evaluate and invibe.
An intimate artwork can be: a portrait, an object of meaning to the artist or an erotic inner or outer world. The veiled or not fully revealed meaning of an artwork can invite intimacy.
The detail and delicacy of an artwork which is painstakingly composed and produced can be the form of intimacy regardless of the subject matter.
Not every artwork is intimate, not every attempt to engage our attention is an invitation to intimacy. Works of art can also provoke feelings of alienation as they reflect and regurgitate reality.
We can’t sustain a constant state of intimacy but the pendulum has swung so far toward atomisation that the lack of intimacy has left us feeling disconnected and alone.
The opening event is on Thursday evening, 20 May, 6 - 8 pm and the exhibition runs from 19 May - 12 June. See the invitation, pictured top, for further information. (Click on it for an enlarged view). The eagle-eyed will spot a detail of one of my works among the cropped images (top row, second from right).
A post focusing on my two works selected for INTO ME SEE will follow shortly.
Initiating my newly refurbished adjustable drawing board (big thanks to Shane Jones) is the recently completed diptych, Recollection, (2021, acrylic on two canvases, top panel: 20 x 15 cm, bottom panel: 17.5 x 12.5 cm).
A progress view of the work on the same drawing board prior to today’s makeover, is directly below. I think I’m as pleased with my new improved work surface as I am with the outcome of the painting, the backstory of which will feature in a future post.
Widely regarded as a symbol of transformation and spiritual rebirth, the butterfly is also closely associated with Easter. For me, Easter has always brought the promise of new beginnings. Accordingly, here are three very recent paintings that hopefully capture something of the spirit in which they were made. Presenting a slightly different take on the Rückenfigur, these butterfly-women are so newly-hatched, I haven’t yet had a chance to assign titles to any of them. Partly inspired by Tudor portrait miniatures, each work is acrylic on a circular canvas and measures 12.5 x 12.5 cm.
To learn more about the many-layered symbolism of butterflies, go HERE.
Wishing you all a very Happy Easter.
Many thanks to my old friend, Warrnambool-based artist Kathryn Ryan, who took these photos of the digital process and for her kind permission to share them here.
Pictured above, Double, double (as in toil and trouble*), the little work that’s been by far the biggest challenge of any of the paintings I’ve recently undertaken.
Double, double (2021, acrylic on two canvases, 17.5 x 25 cm) went through so many different stages, none of which remotely met my expectations, that I finally dismissed it as a heroic failure and moved on to other works.
I’ve learnt a great deal during the development of this picture. As it turned out, putting it aside was a good move. It gave me some sorely needed time and distance. Moreover, I was able to take what I gleaned from the making of other paintings in the series and apply some of it here. (In fact, all of the works so far have informed one other to some degree).
Double, double has also proven frustratingly hard to photograph. At this stage, I’ve decided it is what it is. Nevertheless, the work does look significantly better in the flesh. For starters, there is a more even tonal balance between the two panels than appears here and the colours, built up over multiple layers, are somewhat richer.
I haven’t documented the many stages this painting has been through and wouldn’t inflict them on anyone even if I had. However, a handful of developmental shots are below. At one stage, my twin protagonists were intended to wear matching earrings based on an ornate gold pair I discovered in a catalogue of historic jewellery originating from the Victorian Goldfields (see last two photos). The inclusion of finely detailed, delicate areas of gold was intended to reflect the influence of Tudor portrait miniatures on this work. I laboured over the jewellery for several hours, only to realise it was an enormous distraction that would detract from the rest of the painting, most notably the intricately braided hair that’s central to it. As a result, I abandoned the earrings even before I’d finished painting them. In the end, I went with the relatively simple earrings shown in the finished work above. They are based on a pair I’ve owned for many years, although I’ve changed the gemstones from the original red stones (which I believe are coral) to my birth stone, turquoise.
*Song of the Witches, Macbeth, William Shakespeare, Act IV, Scene I.
Today is International Women’s Day 2021. In celebration, here is my newly completed work, Wonder (2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 12.5 cm). The lace collar was adapted from one of the doilies I inherited from my late aunt, Eileen Klein (see second progress view below).
Recently I used another doily from her collection as the basis for my subject’s collar in the diptych, Idyll. To view the work, click HERE.
Following is an updated (and hopefully, definitive) list of events that were moved from 2020 in the wake of COVID-19. I’m thankful that they will all go ahead and look forward with eager anticipation to each and every one of them.
NOTE: the revised 2021 dates for my solo shows at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery and Queenscliff Gallery, previously announced HERE, remain the same.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Backstories
Level 8, Room 16, The Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne 3000 (cnr. Flinders Lane)
July 21 - August 7
Opening event: 2 - 4 pm, Saturday July 24
Backstories, my first solo show with Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, comprises recent paintings and drawings that expand upon the “rear view portraits” closely associated with my work for over two decades.
Rückenfigur
81 Hesse Street, Queenscliff, VIC 3225
30 September – 18 October
Comprising paintings, prints and drawings, the exhibition presents the first overview of the most significant and enduring theme in my oeuvre, namely the Rückenfigur, or figure seen from behind.
2021 EVENTS MOVED TO 2022
APW George Collie Memorial Print Award
In 2020 I was awarded the APW George Collie Memorial Print Award, an honour I share with with the late Barbara Hanrahan. Initially postponed until 2021, the George Collie Memorial Print Award Exhibition at the Australian Print Workshop Gallery has been moved to next March, in alignment with International Women’s Day 2022.
https://www.australianprintworkshop.com/
Artist-in-Residence, Geelong Grammar
In 2020 Geelong Grammar School invited me to be their Artist-in-Residence for Term 2. Past AIRs include Lewis Miller, Sue Anderson, Dean Bowen, David Frazer, Tim Storrier, Yvette Coppersmith, Juan Ford, Nick Howson, Matthew Quick, Bern Emmerichs, Robert Lee Davis, David Booth (a.k.a. Ghostpatrol) and Godwin Bradbeer. The AIR was formerly rescheduled for May 2021. I will now take up the residency in May 2022.
www.ggs.vic.edu.au/School/The-Arts/Visual-Arts/Visiting-Artists
Full details of both events will be announced nearer the times.
Pictured top: Sunset, 2019, acrylic on linen, 40.5 x 30.5 cm, part of my forthcoming solo show, Backstories, at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne.
Pictured above: Wayfarer, 2021, diptych, acrylic on canvas, 37.5 x 15 cm overall.
My protagonist’s intricately-patterned lace shawl is based on the even more complex design reproduced in the first image below, a panel of Austrian lace dating from the 19th century. As with all of the lace depicted in my work, rather than making a straight copy, which frankly I’d find extremely tedious, I select elements of a pattern, rearranging and adapting these to fit the format of the image. Until the pattern is resolved and each component has found its place, a watercolour pencil (white works best on a dark background) is a useful tool. Needless to add, a very fine brush is essential.
The well-thumbed reference book is Lace, L’Aventurine, Paris, 1995. English edition: Bookking International, Paris, 1995, English translation by Sue Budden.
A series of progress views follow directly.
