debra dawes
at her majesty's pleasure 2011
22 june - 21 july 2012
Debra Dawes has earned the reputation as one of Australia's finest contemporary abstract painters
With paintings in most major Australian collections, such as the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery, her reputation is well deserved. Debra was born in 1955 and has been exhibiting professionally for 30 years. She is represented by Gallery Barry Keldoulis in Sydney, and prior to that by Sherman Galleries.
On the surface it appears that her new series of paintings have taken a sharp change of direction, gone are the hard edge op-art patterns of recent years, replaced by carefully reproduced excerpts from hand written letters. Yet Debra's paintings have always conveyed more than their mere surface suggests. With exhibition and series titles over the past five years such as Cover Up, Double Dealing and Blind Faith, her paintings have subtly interrogated government cover-ups, camouflage, duplicity and hypocrisy, as well as refugee issues and the war on terror.
Her new series, At Her Majesty's Pleasure 2011, is based on a series of letters received from a young man incarcerated for eighteen months. (72 artworks from the series of 191 will be on display in Perth.) Debra has known this young man since his birth, and she saw him get into some real trouble in his teenage years, resulting in a prison sentence in 2010 when in his early 20s. In reproducing his words, including the grammar, acronyms and prison slang, and using his handwriting style, Debra draws us into his daily life. As the eighty pages of letters unfold the viewer forms an empathy with him, sharing the monotony, the small joys, the sharp shocks and the escape that writing provided for him.
“The letters had real information in them too. Which is mainly why he was OK with Dawes using them for art: she might help people understand a little about what it's like to be in jail, to feel what it's like, maybe, as well as thinking about it a bit.”
[Ross Gibson,
Sentencing exhibition essay, 2012]
Each artwork has the handwriting centred, encased by a large white border. It frames and controls the text, encapsulating the writing in a white cell. The artworks are double hung in long rows, each work measuring 112 x 77cm, resulting in a display that visually surrounds the viewer, imprisoning them and demanding attention.
Artwork Photos by
Parish Stapleton, courtesy the artist and Gallery Barry Keldoulis
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- TURNER GALLERIES | showcasing contemporary art
at 470 WILLIAM STREET NORTHBRIDGE WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6003 - TURNER GALLERIES HAS NOW CLOSED.
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