Australia Wide Seven premieres at the Belconnen Arts Centre, ACT from 30 October to 18 December. Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 4pm. Come along to the floor talk by Ozquilt Network President Dr Dianne Firth from 11am-12noon on Saturday 14 November 2020. All welcome!
Future Fossil 1
©2020 Lois Parish Evans
Tauranga, NEW ZEALAND
Price: A$375
Statement: Future Fossil 1 is a statement about the potential loss of flora species if we continue to sacrifice the natural world for commercial gain. Even the gingko, one of our planet’s oldest trees, could succumb and in the future be unearthed as a fossil.
SEA OF LEAVES
©2020 Helen Gray
Mawson ACT
Price: A$300
Statement: During the summer fires we swam in a sea of black leaves.
GHOST BLANKET V
©2020 Fiona Gavens
Brunswick West, Victoria
Price: A$200
Statement: Woven blankets are deconstructed then reimagined as a quilt/lace.
HELPING IN THE GARDEN
©2020 Sharon Peoples
O'Connor, ACT
Price: A$500
Statement: This piece sits within a body of work, Hortus Conclusus (the Enclosed Garden), made during a period of intense isolated work in both the garden and the studio. Many birds visited the garden as soil was dug, overturned and mulched. In particular the willie wagtails would chatter, chucka! chucka! chucka! as I dealt with the cabbage moths which were intent on feeding on the broccoli. Lace-like structures are used to underwrite the fragility in balancing our environment.
BLUE BOX FISH
©2020 Brenda Wood
Scarborough QLD
Price: A$380
Statement: Sealife is incredible. The patterns and textures are unlimited and provide plenty of diverse inspiration. Boxfish have the most amazing skeletal structure. Boxed in shape with only small holes in their frame, their armour is entirely unpalatable to most predators. Their patterns and markings amazing and uniquely blue.
THE BLUES
©2020 Linda Steele
Park Orchards, Victoria
Price: A$500
Statement:Some days nothing seems to go the way you expected or wanted. You just have the blues
ODE TO BANKSIA #6
©2020 Tara Glastonbury
Kensington, Victoria
Price: NFS
Statement: Boxed In started as three scraps leftover from a workshop. I don’t like to waste fabric so transformed them into a new piece. Boxed in during the Covid-19 pandemic, I chose not to be boxed in artistically either by that or by the constraints inherent in learning any technique.
THE DREAM
© 2020 Victoria Mansfield
Alexandra Hills, Queensland
Price: A$350
Statement: This piece represents how brainwaves or ideas start in my head, moving from small and dark to larger and lighter and becoming entwined as they grow and develop. My favourites techniques are playing with colour gradation, tiny improv piecing, extreme trapunto and detailed quilting.
INTRIGUING IRIDESCENCE
© 2020 Zara Zannettino
Highbury, South Australia
Price: A$800
Statement: : Intriguing Iridescence: The luminous metallic sheen of the Nicobar Pigeon’s neck feathers has mysterious iridescent qualities, such that the rainbow hues and intensity seem to alter according to the viewer’s angle of observation. A mesmerising site, truly worthy of wonder.
ACUITY #5:
IN A TWINKLE OF AN EYE
©2020 Brenda Gael Smith
Copacabana NSW
Price:$325
Statement: The world changed so quickly with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems like we can constantly recalibrating for the "new normal" to view life afresh.
VASARELY PRINT
©2020 Sue Reid
Kyabram Victoria
Price: A$400
Statement: Every finger print is unique, just as the work of every great artist is unique.
BABBLERS ON THE LAWN
©2020 Linden Lancaster
Picola Victoria
Price: A$350
Statement: On a searing summer’s day these Grey-Crowned Babblers had a lovely time on my cool watered lawn.
BIRDS EYE VIEW:
GANGES DELTA
© 2020 Alison Charlton
Bridgeman Downs, Queensland
Price: NFS
Statement: I am intrigued by perspective and in particular aerial views. Bird’s Eye View - Ganges Delta is inspired by NASA thermal imaging of the Ganges River Delta.
MIGRATE RED
© 2020 Julie Haddrick
Adelaide, South Australia
Price: A$390
Statement: The piece I have created is based on flower drawings and photographs from my travels throughout the world mainly to exotic places in the East. My own large garden is a great inspiration for me; it is full of flowers and plants. The work is highly graphic is style.
MAKING A POINT
©2020 Dianne Firth
Turner ACT
Price: A$350
Statement: Different voices, all making a point, but seldom listening to each other or reaching agreement.
Photographer: Andrew Sikorski
FLOWERS ALWAYS #9
© 2020 Suzanne Gummow
West Croyden, South Australia
Price: A$350
Statement:“I must have flowers, always and always” – Claude Monet
AWAY FROM HOME
©2020 Carolyn Sullivan
Bundanoon NSW
Price: NFS
Statement:Indian decorative arts are such an inspiration.
GATHERINGS 2
© 2020 Susan Mathews
Ocean Grove, Victoria
Price: A$525
Statement: : One of a series of deisgns where I have gathered various sketches of Australian native plants from my numerous sketchbooks in order to use them in a new way.
PLANKTON 1 DRIFT
©2020 Alvena Hall
West Lakes WA
Price: A$500
Statement: Represented here are some of the plankton species that drift in the oceanic currents, at the very foundation of life, largely responsible for the very oxygen we breathe..
SUMMER SKETCH III
@2020 Judy Hooworth
Morisset NSW
Price: A$395
Statement: at last... a little bit of green around the pond...
TREK
© 2020 Alison Withers
Warnambool VIC
Price: A$300
Statement: Follow the track through the ancient landscape to the base of Hollow Mountain. Rock hop and scramble past windblown caverns to reach the top and take in the magnificent views across the vast Wimmera Plains.
DOUBLE DENIM
© 2020 Beth & Trevor Reid
Gowrie ACT
Price: A$350
The subtle velvety tones of faded denim give a painterly effect.
REGENERATION 2
©2020 Alison Schwabe
Montevideo, Uruguay
Price: A$850
Statement: Much native Australian vegetation shows signs of new growth on the black and grey ash covered landscape within mere days or weeks of a devastating bushfire. Damaged human lives though, take much longer to heal and show signs of the hope and courage needed to move forward in Life.
SUMMER INFERNO #2
© 2020 Sandra Champion
Battery Point, TAS
Price: A$250
Statement: The bushfires in Australia this summer were apocalyptic. The landscape was left blackened, everything gone, except for piles of rubble and corrugated iron where homes once stood.
ABSTRACTED LANDSCAPES:
APPLE ISLE
©2020 Lynne Hargreaves
Legana, TAS
Price: NFS
Statement: : I’m attracted to the pattern in nature. I’m currently working with the linear qualities of the landscape. Simplifying and abstracting elements and exploring drawing with stitch and surface texturing.
DISCONNECTED HABITAT
©2020 Marie Mitchell
Perth, Western Australia
Price: A$450
Statement: With memories of the horrendous ‘Black Summer’ habitat loss fresh in my mind, an aerial view of the Western wheatbelt prompted a new perspective on small patches of green below. While vital to the health of agriculture these critically endangered, fragmented and scattered ecological communities only received protection in 2015.
BIRD COUNT
THE SHEARWATER MIGRATION
©2020 Judy Wilford
Armidale, NSW
Price: A$2,250.00
Statement: The Streaked Shearwater migrates from Asia through the West Pacific to Northern and North Western Australia.
STITCHES IN TIME
©2020 June Brown
Milawa VIC
Price: A$600
Statement: During the 1980s we were encouraged to do very fine quilting stitches but now after 35 years attitudes and opportunities have changed. The “Go Slow” style of stitching produces large stitches which are ideal to demonstrate the changes in the world of quilting.
Photographer: Cynthia Brown
FREEDOM
©2020 June Brown
Milawa VIC
Price: A$500
Statement: Leaves are free to travel wherever they are blown. We have not been free to travel at all during the isolation of the Covid Virus Pandemic. After 8 weeks away from towns and shops - FREEDOM was forefront in my mind as I stitched this quilt.
Photographer: Cynthia Brown
SMOKY MOON
©2020 Wilma Cawley
Chisholm, ACT
Price: A$300
Statement: For a couple of weeks, during the summer bushfires, I would search for the Sun, instead I found a Smoky Moon
BURNT #1
©2020 Julie-Anne Rogers
Narara, NSW
Price: A$495
Statment: The 2019/20 bushfires in Australia affected us all. We all experienced the air pollution and fear. We lost lives, buildings, bushland, and countless animals. Nature relies on us to not let it happen again.
COOLBARDIE
©2020 Suzanne Lyle
Ballarat, Victoria
Price: A$750
BLUE GRASS
©2020 Carolyn Sullivan
Bundanoon NSW
Price: A$500
Statement: Grasses do such wonderful things - hold soil in place, feed stock, store nutrients, a place for many organisms, provide seeds for food and so much more. But best of all I love to see them rippling across the land in the wind and glimmering with sun and dew.
BLOWN BY THE MIND
©2020 Dianne Firth
Canberra, ACT
Price: A$500
Statement: Drought, heat, parched earth, dehydrated leaves, and then comes the wind.
Photographer: Andrew Sikorski
LOST AT SEA
©2020
Alsyn Midgelow-Marsden
Matakana, NEW ZEALAND
Price: A$800
Statement: Alysn’s work references personal memories, a long connection to the seashore and the ocean with an equally long connection to fibres, textiles and stitch in textiles. The ‘Seam[i]stress’ series is filled with siren songs, soaring calls, spectral moans, shrill wails and rhythmic scratches which reach across the oceans; objects (natural and otherwise) washed up on the shores; all elements flowing freely, overlapping, echoing and retreating like waves on the coast.
LANDLINES-SHADOWS
©2020 Jill Rumble
Brookvale NSW
Price: A$300
Statement:Shadows on the land day and night, part of our landscape.
VERY DRY
©2020 Alison Muir
Cremorne NSW
Price: A$100
Statement:: 2019 Australia is in the midst of the worst and longest drought since records were kept. The politicians says it’s not climate change. Dry stalks don’t feed cattle or sheep. When will our Indigenous people be respected to manage the land and water the ways they have for Millenia?
LAYOUT 1
©2020 Sue Cunningham
Stawell, Victoria
Price: A$150
Statement:Design inspiration: a 1908 textbook for dressing an old fashioned doll. It is a handbook for ‘little girl mothers’ to learn how to hand sew just as ‘neatly as possible’. Hand quilting in the fashion of basting.
AW7 Artists
The jurors Suzanne Gummow, Alysn Midgelow Marsden and Sharon Peoples selected 37 works by the following artists. Each work is 40x40cm. Many artworks are for sale: download the AW7 Catalogue.
June Brown
Wilma Cawley
Sandra Champion
Alison Charlton
Sue Cunningham
Dianne Firth
Fiona Gavens
Tara Glastonbury
Helen Gray
Julie Haddrick
Alvena Hall
Lynne Hargreaves
Judy Hooworth
Linden Lancaster
Suzanne Lyle
Victoria Mansfield
Susan Mathews
Marie Mitchell
Alison Muir
Lois Parish Evans
Beth and Trevor Reid
Sue Reid
Julie-Anne Rogers
Jill Rumble
Alison Schwabe
Brenda Gael Smith
Linda Steele
Carolyn Sullivan
Judy Wilford
Alison Withers
Brenda Wood
Zara Zannettino
Introduction by Dr Sam Bowker
Reflecting on their experiences of Australia’s vast and varied landscapes, the artists of the Ozquilt Network have showcased the diversity of practices across contemporary Australian quiltmaking. In this exhibition, their work consists of observations across the living world. These are translated into textiles that share rich and subtle engagements with our native flora and fauna, the changing climate, the urban, the interstellar and the microscopic. As fixed forms and fugitive glimpses, these small squares are windows across a changing world.
Though 2020 has been an extraordinary year, it is not specifically Australia’s landscape that is changing. Quiltmaking is constantly renewing itself as new voices find expression through layers of fabric held together by thread. The three selectors, Alison Gummow (SA), Sharon Peoples (ACT) and Alysn Midgelow-Marsden (New Zealand) selected 37 works from 83 entries. Combined with their own contributions, we see 40 small quilts before us.
In this exhibition, you will find residues and traces, or memories of objects and moments that no longer exist. You will find striking juxtapositions of brilliant colour and form, the familiar and the strange. Look for those quilters who have created forms you have not seen before, for those who have honed in as far as the eye can focus, and who have borrowed old words to tell new stories. Quilts are complex surfaces, shaped by the interplay of intriguing materials. More than images, they are sculptural – and in this exhibition’s format, they remind me of a disassembled book, each page contributed by a new author. How closely we look at each quilt determines the story we read from all.
For some, this is a story driven by drawing – as punctuated lines that hold layers together, or visual structures blending the abstract and figurative. For others, it is the image or the substance of the quilt itself, as one thing becomes another. Quilting is a slow and tactile process, it is an exploration of combinations. Ask yourself, what does it tell you about the artist? Does it generate the palpable tingle of wanting to make something yourself?
Quilting generates a thriving ecosystem of critical and inclusive practice that is simultaneously competitive and empowering. We see this clearly in Australia Wide Seven – a journey across the vibrant landscape of contemporary Australian quiltmaking.
About the Author
Dr Sam Bowker is the Senior Lecturer in Art History & Visual Culture at Charles Sturt University, based in Wagga Wagga. He lectures across contemporary Australian and Islamic art and design, and his research builds upon the history of the Egyptian tentmakers and the art of khayamiya applique. Contemporary and colonial quilting informs his teaching and research, such as his recent publications for The Journal of Modern Craft, The Australian Society for Asian Art (TASAA Review) and Craft + Design Inquiry.
Download: Introduction to Australia Wide Seven by Dr Sam Bowker.
Exhibition Tour Program
The Australia Wide Seven exhibition tour program is under development and includes the following venues:
- 31 October – 18 December 2020: Belconnen Arts Centre. Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 4pm
- 1 February – 14 March 2021: Naracoorte Art Gallery. Gallery hours: Wednesday to Friday 10am to 4pm Saturday and Sunday 10am to 3pm
- 1 – 28 May 2021: Kyabram Town Hall Gallery 199 Allan St Kyabram, Victoria
- 4 – 25 June 2021: Bainz Gallery Wangaratta, Victoria
- 4 March – 19 July 2022: National Quilt Museum Paducah USA
Please direct exhibition inquiries to: aw7@ozquiltnetwork.org.au
