Tudor Rose

Pictured above: a stepping stone to new directions: Tudor Rose, 2023, (study), acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 10 x 10 cm.

The tattoos are based on details from an embroidery, also titled Tudor Rose, designed by May Morris, circa 1892.

Pictured below: the studio today, looking across one cluttered surface to another. The recently completed painting Tudor Rose is in the foreground, giving a clearer idea of its scale. Elizabethan portrait miniatures, particularly those by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, are an enduring influence. Although Tudor Rose and other paintings in this series are studies that will later be expanded on, they are also finished works in their own right.

Click on images to enlarge.

Tudor Rose: a work in progress

Pictured above and below: developmental stages of Tudor Rose, acrylic on canvas on board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm.

The face decorations on the small study, soon to be recreated on the larger work, are based loosely on selected motifs in Tudor Rose, c. 1890, an embroidery panel designed by May Morris. An article on the significance of the Tudor Rose and its application in embroidery is HERE. 

Tudor Rose is part of my ongoing series, Decorated Women, scheduled for exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in early December 2024.

WAYS OF BEING - Illustrated Catalogue of Works

 

Deborah Klein

WAYS OF BEING

December 4-24 2024

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne 

ARTIST STATEMENT

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.

- T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (from Four Quartets), 1942

In my latest solo exhibition Ways of Being, I pick up the threads of the pivotal Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures of 1995-97 and, to a lesser extent, the insect women and masked women series (originating in 2000 and 2007 respectively), to weave entirely new narratives.

The original iteration of the Tattooed Faces and Faces and Figures provided frameworks for the development of new iconography, a substantial amount of which underpins my paintings and works on paper to this day. Among the key works to emerge at this time were those focusing on “the gentle arts” - women’s handiwork created specifically for the domestic realm. As Rozsika Parker posits in her pioneering book, The Subversive Stitch (1996), women’s histories are recorded on fabric, not on stone. 

In my earlier works, body decorations inspired by textile arts memorialised the countless anonymous women who created those textiles. Over the passing years, however, a handful of names and faces have begun to emerge - foremost, for me, British Arts and Crafts textile and embroidery designer (also wallpaper and jewellery designer, embroiderer, socialist and educator), May Morris. Her exquisite designs were points of departure for several paintings and linocuts in the exhibition. 

For over two decades, many of my protagonists have resolutely turned their backs on the viewer. Drawing from the age-old motif of Rückenfigur, a compositional device most closely aligned with German Romantic painting, these solitary figures remain intrinsic to my work. They are represented in the exhibition by the Decorated Women, a suite of seven linocuts, and the hand-coloured linocut I Wished on the Moon, 2022. The latter work was created in collaboration with Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, as part of the 2020 APW George Collie Memorial Print Award.

Essentially Ways of Being (a pun on Ways of Seeing, John Berger’s seminal 1972 television series and the subsequent book by Berger and others) is what W. Somerset Maugham referred to in his homonymous memoir of 1938 as The Summing Up. As I aim to piece together disparate fragments from over 40 years of practice, seeking, perhaps, some kind of finality, fresh ideas and the possibilities of new directions persistently insinuate themselves. To quote again from T. S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding: 

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning. 

Deborah Klein

December 2024

CATALOGUE

PAINTINGS 

Eye Candy, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Acanthus, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Climber ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Tender Grapes ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Masked Australian Painted Lady ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Tudor Rose ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm 

Cat Woman ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Blossoms in the tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Spring and Summer, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Orange Tree ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Spring growth, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Rose arbour, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Tulips ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Birds of a feather, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Lady Justice ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Secret garden, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm 

Olive and Rose, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Springtime, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Horned  Poppy ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

A book by its cover ll, 2024, Acrylic on canvas panel, 30.5 x 30.5 cm

SMALL WORKS

See Me, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

In flower, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Tudor Rose I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

A book by its cover I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Horned Poppy I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Climber I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Lady Justice I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Tulips I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Hand embroidery, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Tender Grapes I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Chinoiserie, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

Blossoms in the tree I, 2023, Acrylic on canvas panel, 10.5 x 10.5 cm

LINOCUTS

I wished on the Moon, 2022, hand-coloured linocut, 34.5 x 26.8 cm, ed. 20.

Decorated Women, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Maid of Honour 2, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Foreign Flora, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40.

Tangled Tulips, 2023, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Sunflower, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

Other, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40. 

A Snail’s Pace, 2024, linocut with Chine collé, 15 x 10 cm, edition: 40.

Photography by Tim Gresham

FOR ALL ENQUIRIES, CONTACT:

Stephen McLaughlan Gallery

Level 8 Room 16 The Nicholas Building

37 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000

(on the corner of Flinders Lane)

Telephone: 0407 317 323

Email: st73599@bigpond.net.au

Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday, 1 - 5 pm

Saturday 11 am - 5 pm

& by appointment

During the run of WAYS OF BEING, the gallery will also be open 

from 1-5 pm on Sunday December 22 , 

Monday December 23 and Tuesday December 24 

Tudor Rose (Part 2)

Pictured top, far right: a further progress view of Tudor Rose (acrylic on canvas board, 30.5 x 30.5 cm). To its left is the study for the work and a reproduction of the eponymous needlework panel designed by May Morris, from which the tattoo iconography is drawn.

Additional developmental views are below:

The work is from the current series, Decorated Women, to be exhibited at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne in December 2024. 

For earlier views of the work in progress, go HERE.