A joint exhibition by left-of-field painter Robyn Werkhoven with potter and teacher Sue Stewart seems an interesting challenge, bringing together two such very different talents.
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Sue Stewart has long demonstrated that she is completely in control of her medium, both in elegantly thrown vessels in the traditional canon and in intricately constructed miniature figures. Robyn Werkhoven on the other hand has created infinite variations of the human figure in which realistic drawing takes second place to a carefully outlined gallery of men, women, children and dogs, highly expressive though seemingly haphazard coalescences of anatomic elements.
For the present show at Back to Back Galleries, closing tomorrow, they have each reached out to the other. Robyn's paintings are more formally organised, many arranged into geometric groups. We recognise more clearly the sharp-edged clarity of her colouring in. Without the customary surrealist contributions of collaborator Eric, much of the exhibition involves interactions between mothers and children, often accompanied by strange multi-coloured dogs, birds and lizards.
Sue's vessels are as pristine as ever and their painted decorations create a language of control. But if we look carefully, there are playful details. A tall pot, helmeted like Ned Kelly, has a blue trail animating its curving surface which, down near the base, suddenly disappears into a power socket. Sue is also experimenting with a new technique in hand-built vessels carved into layers of differently coloured clays which thus achieve the authority of natural objects.
At Timeless Textiles, 24 invited artists and craftspeople have responded to the idea of the stole, a traditional scarf or garment worn around the shoulders for ritual celebration throughout the Christian world, but also in other faiths.
The concept for the exhibition comes from Rod Pattenden, uniting two major aspects of his life, though we don't usually think of him working with textiles. His painted fabric piece, depicting water and its life-giving powers, sets the tone for works in a wide variety of materials, each imbued with a life-affirming message.
Some are elaborate pieces by textile artists. Sachiko Kokota's quilted and patched work draws on Japanese traditional techniques, incorporating thousands of tiny stitches animating the surface. Giselle Penn's equally densely worked piece symbolises life's journey in countless pieced and embroidered episodes. The fabric collage of Jan Clark invokes the awe-inspiring view of earth from outer space in its wealth of blue, white and tawny brown.
Other artists are less concerned with textile experiment or wearability and more focused on message and meaning, while still using a fabric support.
Peter Gardiner acknowledges our guilty role in the fearful bushfires of last summer; the rough curls of sooty felt wonderfully suggesting cinders, while a central panel reveals the force of the inferno. Graham Wilson also invokes bushfires in felt, with the blackened trunks of burnt trees coming back to life in sprays of tiny beads.
John Barnes has a characteristic painting of the mandala origin of light, while his family has transferred the image onto billowing silk. Robyn and Eric Werkhoven paint one of their enigmatic narratives, involving men, women and very toothy dogs, onto a length of cotton material.
Then there are artists whose versions of stoles depart completely from the textile tradition. Anne Kempton, the gallery's director, uses the seductive textures of paperbark. Braddon Snape creates a giant collar from inflated, highly polished steel. Curiously, this intractable metal object successfully recalls the luxuriously soft silver fox status symbols of the 1930s. James Drinkwater, in a flamboyant gesture, brings together an assemblage of metal and timber fragments to commemorate his grandfather. Penny Dunstan's stole is fashioned from an alien flowering grass. Chris Mansell constructs an imposing garment out of price tags.
This has been an interesting project with many thoughtful objects. It is splendid that Anne Kempton and her Timeless Textiles gallery is expanding its role into the wider art scene, confirming once again that fabric and fibre are art materials as valid as oil paint and marble. I believe there are other projects in the pipeline.
A potential problem is that the works will undoubtedly require more exhibition space than the gallery can provide. How well these stoles would have filled the hauntingly evocative spaces of The Lock-Up next door.
