Cats and Cohen - done and dusted!

Well, my exhibition, The Obsessions of a Woman of a Certain Age - Cohen & Cats, is finished. I'm very happy...lots of people came to see it, had lots of positive feedback and even sales!! Thank you to everyone who came to the opening and throughout the exhibition. Here are some images, for anyone who would have liked to see it... These are from A Taxonomy of (Art) Cats

Small prints

installation

Sleeping / sitting down cats

And From the Book of LC.  The space was tiny, so it was impossible (without a wide angle lens) to get the  whole wall of the installation in one image.  

 

 

The Obsessions of a Woman of a Certain Age - Cohen & cats

It's been very quiet here lately because I've been frantically preparing for a solo exhibition at 69 Smith Street Gallery, Fitzroy. You might call it a self-indulgent celebration of things I love!

It's installed now, in a small gallery upstairs.  There are two bodies of work - A Taxonomy of (Art) Cats, linocut prints of cats from Art History, organised into pseudo-scientific classifications; and From the Book of L.C., a cluster of small paintings of fragments of Leonard Cohen poetry/lyrics in colourful abstract fields. The opening is on Saturday afternoon - do drop in if you are able!

Here is a peek at the paintings. It's not actually that blue. I was SURE I had the camera on the right setting!

Another print exchange print

 

Earlier this year I decided to participate in three or four print exchanges.  This is for the second one - a  Print People exchange. Relating to the series A Taxonomy of (Art) Cats (read more here.), for these small-print exchanges I've decided upon hybrids - cats that combine elements from two or three sources.  The form of this one is based upon a work by an anonymous 19th century American printmaker working in a naïve style, with markings from a 17th century woodcut from an English publication, The Historie of Four-footed Beastes, compiled by Edward Topsall; and Barbara Hanrahan (Australian printmaker and writer.) I bought myself Annette Stewart's biography of Hanrahan for Mother's Day and it arrived in time for me to incorporate the dotted chest/underbody markings she often used. I hadn't realised that there were cats in a lot of her prints. If you don't know her work here is a link to some of her prints, held in the Art Gallery of NSW. (oh, now that I look, there are lots of cats!)  I read most of her books, both novels and short stories, years ago...think I'll have to dip in again after the biography.

 

 

Leftovers

Just printed my edition of 5 x 7" linocut prints for the Leftovers IV print exchange.  Has to be posted by Friday.  Hoping it dries in time!

Some of the edition of Egyptian goddess cat (with Raoul Dufy stripes).

It relates to the series A Taxonomy of (Art History) cats on which I'm currently working. 

 This is a hybrid.

 

Work in progress - Cats!

 

 

Some hand-printed proofs of the beginnings of a body of work, A Taxonomy of Cats.

A lover of cats, I've noticed that there are a lot of images of cats in art. Here, the cats are taken out of their context and classified in a faux 'scientific' taxonomy - walking cats, curled, sleeping, sitting up tall or cleaning themselves.  Hunting cats are probably next.  I'm thinking of presenting them as a large educational/scientific poster.  This is one part of an exhibition I'm planning for next year...The Obsessions of  Woman of a Certain Age(!)  The other obsession is Leonard Cohen.  Going for a bit of alliteration...Cohen and Cats!!