Category / Exhibitions

by Leonie Andrews

Make it pink

Oh the joy of wandering around a good art gallery, in this case the Art Gallery of South Australia during my Christmas holidays. I seemed to be focusing on the pink things this time.

Baratjala, 2019, Nongirrna Marawili, earth pigments, recycled toner pigment on stringybark.

Drover, 2015, Nyaparu (William) Gardner, pencil, synthetic polymer paint on paper.

Tony Tuckson, White lines (horizontal) on black and pink, 1973

Fragment, c.1971, Ian Fairweather, oil on pulp board.

Pied Beauty, 1989, John Olsen, oil on composition board

High Country, 1999, Rosalie Gascoigne, painted corrugated iron on wood.

Margaret Dodd, Holden with haircurlers, c. 1977

Look Rich, 1975, Ann Newmarch, colour screen print on paper.

by Leonie Andrews

Matisse-Picasso mini zine

(Warning, long post with lots of photos)

In the ‘excitement’ of the terrible hail storm yesterday while we were at the National Gallery of Australia I forgot completely about my mini Matisse-Picasso zine.

For non-locals, our weeks of smoke filled skies were cleared by a tremendously damaging hail storm yesterday. Here is a video of what the rain sounded like as we walked around inside the National Gallery of Australia. I was too stunned to get my video happening to record the sound of the hail striking the roof, suffice to say it sounded like the sky was throwing boulders.

The paintings are by Hugh Ramsay an extremely talented, Scottish born Australian artist who died in 1906 from tuberculosis at age 28.

The road and forecourt of the National Gallery of Australia covered in hail the size of golf balls.

Anyway, we originally went to the gallery to make our second visit to the Matisse-Picasso exhibition. While waiting to go in I sat down at the art workshop space just outside the entrance to the exhibition and started making a little collage with the idea of using it to draw on. It then occurred to me that I could make a book out of it. I did this with the help of a short video on how to fold a piece of paper into a book (ah the benefits of the gallery free wi-fi).

This is the closest photo I have of the way the paper looked before turning it into the mini book. This is the reverse side where the painting names and dates are listed.

One of the advantages of making such a small book (5 cm x 7.5 cm or 2 x 3inches), is that all the sketches had to be small and fairly simple. This is the little book as it was at the gallery, (we are pencil only in the gallery).

Picasso, Head of a Boy, 1906: Matisse, Meditation (Portrait of Laurette), c.1916

Picasso, Woman with Tambourine, 1936.

Picasso, Still Life with Pitcher and Apples, 1919: Matisse, The Plaster Torso, 1919.

The front and back of my little zine. Matisse, The Abduction of Europa, 1929: Matisse, Nono Lebasque, 1909.

For better or worse I added colour to the zine when I got home.

I had a great time making this little zine, indeed it’s small size encouraged me to just have fun with the process. I did do some slightly larger sketches in another book, but I think this might become quite addictive.

PS the video that I used to make the book can be found here.

One more parting photo. This is the road outside the gallery strewn with shredded foliage. It looks sort of sylvan, but for knowing how damaged the trees were.

by Leonie Andrews

Blown away

It was very sneaky of the organisers of the Dobell drawing prize to tell me that I got a mention in this review, but not let on what that mention was.

All good!

The full review of the show by Tracy Clement can be read in the May/June print edition of Art Guide Australia or it can be read online here. The installation photo was taken by Peter Morgan, the in-house photographer at the National Art School in Sydney.

by Leonie Andrews

Drawing the exhibition – Bodies of Art

Bodies of Art: Human form from the national collection, is currently on display in the downstairs sculpture rooms of the National Gallery of Australia. I spent the morning there quietly sketching away. The exhibition is a stimulating mix of sculpture, paintings, photography and video works which provided me with lots of interesting compositions to work on.

My first sketch was a grouping of stone sculptures, Torso, 1948 by Rosemary Madigan and Number 24, Harry Boyd by Robert Klippel and a third piece, an Anthropomorphic monument [gowe nio niha], (19th century or earlier) from the island of Nias in Indonesia. I was instantly drawn to the sandstone used in the two Australian works. The deep gougemarks on the Klippel sculpture acted like lines drawn across the surface. In contrast the smoother texture of Madigan’s work supported the subtlety of her torso’s carved planes.

Left to Right, Torso; Anthropomorphic Figure; Number 24, Harry Boyd, graphite with added watercolour

Behind me was an interesting juxtaposition of a hanging work by Giulio Paolini, Aria (Air), 1983 and beyond that, Triptych, 1970, by Francis Bacon.

Paolini’s work consists of two photographs of a renaissance sculpture sandwiched between perspex and hang from a steel cable. The work slowly gyrates beneath the high gallery ceiling, while underneath lies a piece of shattered glass. Behind it hangs Bacon’s equally fractured figures, curiously feeling much more grounded and solid than Paolini’s figure does.

Giulio Paolini, Aria (Air), 1983 and Francis Bacon, Triptych, 1970, pencil with added watercolour

While I drawing the partial elements of the Bacon triptych into this sketch, I became quite intrigued by the figures in the work’s central panel. After a restorative cup of coffee and some biscuits in the Member’s Lounge I returned to my final sketch of the day, the detail of the central panel.

There is certainly scope for more drawing here, so I will plan to make it back there soon.

All the sketching was done in the gallery and the watercolour was added afterwards.

by Leonie Andrews

Oops, I forgot to mention the Dobell Drawing Prize!

At the Dobell Drawing Prize announcement with my work ‘365 Days’

Looking back on my blog I just realised that I hadn’t posted about the Dobell Drawing Prize 2019, which includes my work ‘365 Days’. Spoiler alert – I didn’t win the $30,000.

The big announcement was made two weeks ago, at the end of March and I went up to Sydney for the event. I always find openings and suchlike quite intense experiences and this show, being the most prestigious I have been selected into was no exception.

The 2019 prize panel called for, among other things, drawings in non-traditional media. This resulted in a wide display of techniques and materials across the 58 finalists. It appeared to me that this was a key element of the selection criteria where the public might have been a bit better informed. There was lots of “but how is this drawing” remarks floating around in the gallery on the night. I certainly had that asked about my work and Justine Varga’s winning work using paint into wet photographic medium also copped a lot of the same.

Justine Vargas winning work, ‘Photogenic Drawing’

I think the gallery might have also increased the understanding of the works by including the artist’s statements in the wall text. I doubt that anyone would realise that my work was made over the course of a year, just by looking at it. When I did look at works with the catalogue in my hand l really came to appreciate a many works that had previously appeared quite difficult to grasp.

With such a broad range of styles on display it must have been a challenge for judge Ben Quilty to make a final choice. There is both seriousness and fun in this show. Chris Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa) certainly got my prize for the best use of glitter in a drawing.

Chris O’Doherty, ‘Robot Priest with captured Australian’

There were also a number of exquisite pencil drawings and this wonderful landscape by Western Australian artist Sonia Kurarra.

Sonia Our area, ‘Martuwarra’

The Dobell Drawing Prize exhibition is being held at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, Sydney and will run until 25 May 2019.

PS My work is featured on the inside back cover of the catalogue!