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The work in WINDOWSPACE is from an upcoming exhibition at QDOS Gallery, Lorne
4-25 Nov 2018
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Genesis
of the Con Brio oeuvre.
Each morning Victoria Howlett walks her small dog
along the tide-lines of the Marengo and Otway bays, absorbing the colour, life
and movement of the rock pools. At times dark and mysterious, at times clear
and vibrant, the pools and eddies reflect a world of lush aqueous nature. Some
pools are deep, dark and still, enclosing a microcosm of habitat. Others,
shallow, sand- filled and brightly lit with reflected sun.
As the paintings evolved over
several months - from the wave-washed pearl-grey foreshore rocks into a high key colour
register - these works expanded into a surge of colour and movement, where
shapes and juxtapositions assumed an imaginary underwater landscape filled with
light and colour. A spirited celebration of landscape. Con Brio.
The land holds us and grounds
us. We belong to the land with such intimate and powerful ties, that
displacement can disrupt our sense of belonging.
For many years Howlett has played with this connection
between such landscapes (seascapes), memory and an evocation of place – shared
country, joyful celebration. From the early Apollo Bay landscape paintings, to
her more abstract collages and enigmatic three-dimensional ceramic
configurations, a visual lexicon of forms has developed that gathers the motifs
and memory of sites as varied as the Otway coast, Flinders Ranges, Lake Mungo
and Mutawintji.
Landscape was also central to Howlett’s recent PhD
research from Monash University. That studio work and Exegesis, ‘In Pursuit of Desire Lines: A Woman in the
Landscape’, documented the experiences of the bush and coastal painting
camps she organised, where women temporarily discarded their roles as ‘wife,
mother, carer’, and worked ‘en plein air’ in their creative field at these
diverse camp sites. These ‘bush-camp’ locations, where we shared women’s
stories around the campfire, ranged from the lushness of ‘Bundanon’ and Broome
to the dry plains of Silverton or Noonkanbah in the Kimberley.
Howlett’s arts practice reflects a concern with a
contextualisation of landscape imagery and the perception of identity, place
and celebration, especially in response to current issues regarding continuing
colonial exploitation, environmental carnage, and feminist theory.
Drawing on her wide international and national
exhibition history, and her experience of several decades as a lecturer in arts
practice, her oeuvre continues its re-invention in her Marengo/Apollo Bay
studio.
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| Howlett in her studio (2018) |
Some Selected Collections: NGV, National Gallery Canberra,
Art Gallery SA &
WA,
Parliament House Canberra, Australian Embassy Iran, Powerhouse Museum Sydney,
Regional Galleries Manly, Newcastle, Ballarat, Shepparton, Bathurst, Bendigo,
Geelong, New England, State Craft Collection, Australia Craft Council, Art
Bank, Victoria Ministry for the Arts, Latrobe University, University of
Melbourne.
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Join Victoria on Sunday 9th September, 2-4pm and hear her talk about The Process, Inspiration - How we get it and what we do with it
This
visual presentation illustrates a variety of on-site source material & some
studies that evolved from that material, gradually developing into the final
resolved works. The process of documenting a sense of place ‘en plein air’,
and translating those gleanings into imagery, will be discussed, along with such
tools as notebooks, visual diaries, photographs and the written word.
Upcoming exhibition at QDOS Gallery, Lorne 4-25 Nov qdosarts.com
