This two person exhibition features patterns and how they have been interpreted and saturated with meaning over many centuries of use by different cultures.

Jillian Green is exhibiting exquisite drawings, which are breathtakingly detailed, and a series of paintings, which glow with colour.

Jillian stated that her
“work references, both in form and content, the Christian art of the Middle Ages, particularly the illuminated manuscripts of this period. My ideas come mainly from reading traditional and contemporary philosophical and theological writings. The detailed adorning of sacred texts was for the monk of the Middle Ages a meditative and contemplative act of worship. Much of my work is quite detailed and also done with this intention.”

Jillian studied at Edith Cowan University, graduating with a BA in 2000, and is currently undertaking her Honours Degree at the same university.

Clare McFarlane’s beautiful paintings contain many layers of meaning created by her exploration of Australian feminine identity, cultural structures, patterns, beauty and craftsmanship. They also evoke our memories of the past by drawing on the patterns of the William Morris Company (from the turn of the 19th Century). These evocative patterns are further adorned with the insertion of birds, butterflies, insects and plants native to Australia.

Clare stated that the appearance of these Australian elements “is sudden; arriving or emerging from a Victorian sense of beauty and nature – tamed and domesticated – in structured patterns.” She views these patterns
“as a metaphor for a romanticised past that influences the social and cultural constructions of feminine identity and the search for an Australian identity. Whereas Australian identity is commonly represented in the masculine, my work offers a ‘feminine’ perspective.”

Clare has a Masters Degree from Curtin University, where she also undertook her BA and Honours.

*prices valid 2002