Joan Ross

Stiffies
2007, mixed media, dimensions variable

Cost
Please contact Gallery

In lieu of the pristine white canvas, Ross begins her paintings with surfaces that are already charged with meaning and whose materiality actively guides her process. The raw materials for her paintings as well as her sculptural works derive largely from discarded former possessions, Her materials also include what we likewise disavow in our personal lives — intense everyday neuroses like possessiveness, jealousy, and insecurity — and in our cultural identity as Australians — profound ambivalence towards the legacy of colonialism. Ross’ work could therefore be seen to memorialise that which would otherwise be buried — psychically, culturally and literally — as worthless or unsightly.
Ross has recently begun exploring the conjunction of fur and Australian identity
Fur’s paradoxical evocation of life and death creates a rich stream of allusions that allows the familiar portraits of the early colonials to be creatively reread. Images whose meaning has been leached out by over-reproduction are reconnected by fur with the material world of real bodies, real skin; moreover, the ‘European’ respectability that these images construct is compromised and enlivened through contact with a wild, native animal. The artist has noted, also, that the way the nap of the pelt forces her hand as a painter is akin to the tendentious nature of historical narrative.
(Excerpt from catalogue essay by Jacqueline Millner June 2006)

Born Glasgow. 1961 (moved to Australia 1962)
Represented by Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia

Solo Exhibitions
2007 The Knitted Brow, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney
2006 Fur for instance, Tin Sheds Gallery,
2005 Like pulling hair from butter. Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney
Afraid Not. Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Sydney
Pelt. Campbelltown Arts Centre
2004 MY, paintings, Out of Gallery. Nepean Hospital, Kingswood OH MY GOD, Out of Gallery, Stiff underwear letters. St Bartholomew’s Church. Prospect
2001 Flag Installation. (with Pamela Croci) Katoomba
1998 WANTING, Plastic and Fur pictures. Gitte Weise Gallery, Sydney
1996 Hissy Fit, Performance & exhibition-on-self. S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
1993 Small Paintings. National Trust Centre, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
1989 Solo Exhibition. Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney

Selected Group Exhibitions
2007 Imagined Australia, Palazzo Vaj, Prato, Italy
The Coloured Digger, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
Art + Humour too, Brenda May Gallery, Sydney
2006 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize Exhibition, Sydney
The Idea of The Animal, RMIT gallery Melbourne
Exquisite Corpse, Pelleton Gallery
The Great Dividing Range, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
Works in Progress, Blacktown Arts Centre
2005 Contemporary Collectors Benefactors, Art Gallery of N.S.W, Sydney
GBK at Span Galleries. Melbourne
Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery
Art + Humour. Brenda May Gallery, Sydney
Regarding Retro. Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney (touring till July 2007)
2004 Canberra Contemporary Art Prize. Canberra Contemporary Art Space
2003 Home Sweet Home, The Peter Fay Collection. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (touring)
The Art of Collecting Contemporary Art. Damien Minton Gallery, Newcastle
The Styx Exhibition. Mori Gallery, Sydney
Picturing Paradise. Mori Gallery, Sydney
2002 Redlands Westpac Art Prize. Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney

Collections National Gallery of Australia
University of Sydney
Gold Coast Regional Gallery
Private collections

Awards and Grants
2005 First Prize. Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award

Contact
Gallery Barry Keldoulis
www.gbk.com.au

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