Helen S. Tiernan : Storied Country

Posted by LDFA on November 11, 2022

Helen S. Tiernan’s most recent paintings included in our current exhibition, Storied Country, continue her themes of the Australian landscape as a repository for memory and stories associated with indigenous culture, colonial encounters and life today, expressed through a new visual device – the quirky images of square stud bulls and corpulent cows. Whilst a reminder of the ubiquitous cattle in her native Gippsland, they also reference colonial paintings (as well as William Dobell and John Kelly) and point to exploitative farming and the destruction of local Indigenous culture, fauna and lands. In The Strangers, the cows are provisionally taped onto the canvas, highlighting their presence as outsiders in the landscape, contrasted against the majestic river red gum, asserting a proud indigenous presence and also referencing the landscapes of the Australian Impressionists of the Heidelberg School.

View the paintings at our Gallery until 18 November 2022 and download the catalogue and watch the video of the opening on our website – click here to view

Storied Country – Opening Video

Posted by LDFA on November 2, 2022

Marie Geissler at opening of Helen S. Tiernan Storied Country

Steve Dimopoulos at opening of Helen S. Tiernan Storied Country

The video of our opening of our current exhibition, Helen S. Tiernan: Storied Country is now available to view on our website with acknowledgement of country by Helen Tiernan; an insightful discussion of the paintings by Dr Marie Geissler and official opening by Steve Dimopoulos MP. The exhibition of paintings is showing until 18 November 2022.

Helen can be described as a visual cultural historian who acknowledges her cross-cultural heritage (Irish and Indigenous) and who brings a sense of indigenous presence to her work with both nuance and complexity. Through her atmospheric landscapes painted with great technical skill, Helen highlights difficult and serious issues with a subtlety, gentleness and humour. Her oevure bears the influence of Australian art history and numerous literary sources including Bill Gammage, Bruce Pascoe, Lynne Kelley and Ian McLean.

To view images of the artworks, download the exhibition catalogue and watch a video of the opening, please click here

Helen S Tiernan Storied Country catalogue cover

Helen S. Tiernan: Storied Country Exhibition Opening Sat 22 Oct

Posted by LDFA on October 18, 2022

Born in Gippsland, Helen S. Tiernan draws on her Irish and Aboriginal heritage to explore issues of identity; Black/White contact history; connection to and management of country; environmental concerns; and the experience of women. As well as drawing on her own experiences, she looks to art history and literary, historical and cultural references. Her landscapes build on her understanding of the land as a cultured space of ancient knowledge and deep memory; storied with songlines. By redirecting and transforming history through her own creative process Helen challenges us to revisit and reinterpret it.

“A central idea in my work is the importance of the Australian landscape as a repository or memory bank that is rich with Indigenous knowledge and stories associated with traditional life, colonial encounters and life today. The work is complex, layered and deliberately playful. The paintings are encoded with Indigenous symbols and patterns that express meanings that go deep into the unconscious, pointing to understandings related to the sentience, sacredness and power of the land which words can’t always capture. It is a way of allowing the viewer to engage more imaginatively with the painting and bring their own experiences into their reading of the works.”

Exhibition showing 22 October – 18 November 2022 : Preview the exhibition online

Exhibition to be opened Saturday 22 October at 2pm by Steve Dimopoulos MP, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events; Minister for Creative Industries. Please RSVP to ausart@diggins.com.au

Download the catalogue – colour illustrated with essay by Dr Marie Geissler, Visiting Associate Researcher, University of Wollongong; Associate Researcher, National Museum of Australia, Canberra and author of Dreaming the Land, 2022. Dr Geissler will also speak at the exhibition opening.

Read further about the artist

TIERNAN, As above so Below with Songlines, 222054, 150x90cm

AAADA Sydney Art Fair 2022

Posted by LDFA on September 16, 2022

The Australian Antique & Art Dealers Association is excited to be back in Sydney. Following a successful art fair in Malvern, the AAADA Art Fair, Sydney is showing at the White Bay Cruise Terminal from 15 – 18 September with a number of member participants showing fine art; jewellery; furniture and more.

Lauraine Diggins Fine Art is looking forward to connecting with our Sydney clientele and visitors and is showing a selection of Australian painting, works on paper and decorative arts including works by George Baldessin; Rupert Bunny; Stephen Bowers; Robert Clinch; Charles Conder; Bessie Davidson; John Dent; Robert Dickerson; Ethel Carrick Fox; James Gleeson; Sydney Long; John Ford Paterson; John Perceval; Jane Price; Gloria Petyarr; Iso Rae; Elizabeth (Lilla) Reidy; Henry Rielly; Helen Tiernan; Constance Stokes; Fred Williams; Brett Whiteley; Zhou Xiaoping.

We have a limited number of complimentary tickets so please contact us if you are interested in securing yours.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray – Finalist John Leslie Prize

Posted by LDFA on August 9, 2022

Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray has been selected as a finalist in this year’s John Leslie Art Prize for Landscape at Gippsland Art Gallery. The judges made the final choice of 50 paintings from 455 entries focussing on the general theme of landscape. Elizabeth’s painting, Yam Seeds depicts the seeds from the bush yam, whose flowers, leaves and seeds are important in her country in Utopia, N.T. for both food and medicine. During the brief flowering of the plant, the desert is brightened by a tapestry of colour and the wind through the leaves produces a captivating sense of movement. Elizabeth covers her canvas in tiny, meticulous flicks of colour, giving a shimmering effect in both colour and movement. Elizabeth is the daughter of Nancy Petyarr, one of the celebrated Petyarr sisters and has been painting for around 20 years. She has been a finalist in the Wynne Prize, AGNSW and is represented in the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray Yam Seeds 222006 detail

Position Vacant

Posted by LDFA on June 23, 2022

ASSISTANT GALLERY MANAGER

POSITION AVAILABLE
This position is one within a very small team, comprising two Gallery Directors and a Gallery Manager. It is important for the person in this role to have the initiative, energy, ability and commitment to cover a broad array of tasks as and when required, to be responsible for them and to work in an often unsupervised environment. Often duties cross over and supports all roles.

ABOUT US
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art specialises in Australian colonial, impressionist, modern, contemporary and Australian Aboriginal painting, sculpture and decorative arts. Sourcing major European masterworks upon request.

The Gallery, discreetly located in North Caulfield, has built strong working relationships with private, corporate and institutional collectors and has been responsible for the placement of many significant artworks into public & private collections.

The Gallery works directly with clients to specifically source artworks for private or public collections; or to place artworks with us for sale. The Gallery also shows select exhibitions throughout the year and occasionally participates in art fairs. We manage in-house artwork and exhibition installation, curation, research, artwork packaging, promotion/marketing, media, photography, video production, design, stock management, website management, database management and all in the company of the Gallery dog, Roxy the Kelpie.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR

A proactive self-motivated person to support the delivery of exhibitions and day-to-day operation of the Gallery
Demonstrated experience working in the arts industry or similar environment
Demonstrable high level IT skills using Apple Mac platform
Administrative experience with demonstrated interpersonal, written, oral communication and organisational skills
The ability to work both independently and as a part of a small team
Ability to work in an environment with competing priorities
A passion for people, arts and events
Do you have a background in any of the following: marketing, accounting, curatorship, catalogue production or other??

WHAT WE CAN OFFER
As an employee of the Lauraine Diggins Fine Art you will be part of an inclusive culture. This role is permanent part-time, days of the week are negotiable. Evening or weekend exhibition openings will occasionally be requested.

HOW TO APPLY
If you have the skills, abilities and attitude to take on this position please enquire here. If you require further information please also email us by clicking here.

Gallery hours 10am-6pm, Tuesday-Friday.
W: www.diggins.com.au
FB: LauraineDigginsFineArt
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Vale Cowboy Loy Pwerl

Posted by LDFA on April 6, 2022

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this post includes the name of a person who has died.

It is with great sadness that we pay our respects to senior elder Cowboy Loy Pwerl who died Wednesday 30 March in Alice Springs hospital. Cowboy was a leader within the painting movement at Utopia with his intricate designs often depicting the nesting place of the bush turkey. Cowboy was a senior custodian of a series of Dreaming sites in Utopia, on the western side of the Sandover River. He was an Eastern Anmatyerr speaker who lived his life on country, mostly at Iylenty, and acquired his nickname from his days as a stockman. In his paintings, Cowboy delighted in a strong use of harmonious colour, moving away from more subdued ochres of earlier works, whilst maintaining his signature optical illusional style. On a simple level, the geometric patterning laid out across the canvas in tiny coloured dots, represents the bush turkey as it searches for seeds to eat.

Our thoughts are with Cowboy’s family, particularly Carol, Elizabeth and Genevieve.

Cowboy is represented in the National Gallery of Victoria; the Art Gallery of South Australia; the Melbourne Museum; Benalla Art Gallery; and numerous private collections across Australia and internationally.

Cowboy Loy Pwerl

The Melbourne Fair

Posted by LDFA on March 24, 2022

Come and visit us this weekend at The Melbourne Fair showing at the Caulfield Racecourse – Friday 25/Saturday 26 March 10am – 6pm and Sunday 27 10am – 5pm. We are showing a range of Australian painting, drawings and decorative arts including a large colonial painting by Henry Reilly; an atmospheric landscape by Australian Impressionist Jessie Scarvell; a striking Still Life paintings by Roy de Maistre and Bessie Davidson; artworks by Sidney Nolan; Albert Tucker; John Perceval, Clif Pugh; Brett Whiteley; a new work by Zhou Xiaoping; ceramic work by Stephen Bowers and a selection of indigenous paintings from Utopia including an impressive diptych by Angelina Ngal, whose forthcoming exhibition opens 6th April at the Gallery. We also are showing a few drawings by Constance Stokes in conjunction with our exhibition which concludes 31 March.

Celebrating International Women’s Day

Posted by LDFA on March 8, 2022

It is fortuitous timing that our exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Constance Stokes coincides with International Women’s Day, celebrated on 8 March. Constance Stokes’ life represents the myriad issues facing female artists, particularly pursuing an active career as a professional artist whilst also supporting a family and fitting with societal expectations of the time. Constance Parkins was a talented and dedicated student who travelled overseas to further her artistic studies. Following classes at the Gallery School at the National Gallery of Victoria under Bernard Hall, she was awarded the Travelling Scholarship in 1929 which enabled her to continue her studies at the Royal Academy in London and in Paris in the summer of 1931 with Andre Lhote who was to have a profound influence on her. Her success as an artist was recognised with numerous exhibitions and her inclusion in the Twelve Australian Artists exhibition at Burlington Galleries, London in 1953 and at the 1953 Venice Biennale. Constance married Eric Stokes in 1933 and between 1937 and 1942 they had three children. Constance Stokes is on record as describing the difficulties of combining her career and motherhood, even with a supportive husband, admitting that each impacted the other.

Eric’s early death in 1962 forced a greater impetus to maintain her career and Stokes continued with successful exhibitions. Her paintings of women are particularly prized, their warmth and intimacy matched with bold use of colour. Her works on paper, mostly depicting women, highlight her drawing skill and lyrical line.

As Dr Juliette Peers noted in the catalogue essay for our exhibition:

“For Stokes, as recounted in interviews, the driving factors of her art were her imagination, her sense of design, and, increasingly at the end of her career, revisiting and reinterpreting her own previous works and studies. “Actually, most of my paintings are from imagination or memory.“^[i] Women stand at the centre of her imagery, as she said “the woman takes first place”.^[ii] Many of the works in this present collection reflect her preference for portraying women. Her female studies became particularly important during the later phase of her career, when she, in effect, rebuilt her practice and her confidence after the early death of her husband in 1962. At this date Stokes faced a very different and not always congenial artistic, social and political world to the one in which she first found fame. Her response to these changing times and practices was to heighten her colour and simplify her compositions. “ Juliette Peers, Constance Stokes 1906 – 1991, catalogue essay for Lauraine Diggins Fine Art exhibition, 2021

It is fitting on International Women’s Day that we recognise the talents of Constance Stokes, as a woman, as well as celebrate her depictions of women.

Constance Stokes Woman in Patterned Robe

Learn more about Constance Stokes on our exhibition page where you can enjoy viewing the artworks, accessing the catalogue with essay by Dr Juliette Peers and listen to Dr Gerard Vaughan discussing the exhibition and Constance Stokes oeuvre. The exhibition is showing until 31 March 2022.

Rover Thomas at National Museum of Australia

Posted by LDFA on February 25, 2022

A masterwork by the iconic Kimberley artist Rover Thomas has been donated to the National Museum of Australia in honour of Lauraine Diggins OAM. The large-scale painting Jabanunga depicts the Rainbow Serpent penetrating the earth following a subterranean journey in the wake of Cyclone Tracey’s destruction of Darwin.

Lauraine was a strong supporter of Indigenous art on the international stage. “During her lifetime Lauraine was determined to do whatever she could and use her considerable influence to ensure that many of the important art works created in Australia and overseas became part of the national Estate”, says Michael Blanche, Lauraine’s husband and Director of Lauraine Diggins Fine Art and an advocate for philanthropy. Michael, along with co-Director, daughter Nerida Blanche, intend on donating a series of artworks in memory of Lauraine.

Read media coverage about this important painting below:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-25/act-indigenous-artwork-gifted-to-national-museum-of-australia/100859146

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7633241/national-museum-acquires-12-million-rover-thomas-work/

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/a-national-cultural-plan-can-help-anchor-our-identity-but-no-one-is-listening-20220223-p59z12.html