ARCHIVED MEDIA RELEASE
PA/11/2006 17 February 2006
Australian High Commissioner inaugurates art exhibition
The Australian High Commissioner to India, Mr John McCarthy, today inaugurated Drawn from the Edge, an exhibition of ceramics and textiles by Australian artists Pippin Drysdale and Maggie Baxter.
"Drawn from the Edge is Maggie Baxter’s second exhibition in India and I am sure that it will be as well received and successful as the last one. Pippin Drysdale, who is exhibiting her work for the first time in India, is an internationally recognised ceramicist whose works have been regularly exhibited in the US, Europe, Japan and throughout Australia. Her work should strike a chord with Indian audiences,” said Mr McCarthy.
"The exhibition truly reflects the spirit of Australia-India collaboration. While Pippin pays homage to the Aboriginal Australia’s relationship with land, Maggie’s work is influenced by textile crafts of Kutch."
"The exhibition by the two Australian artists will complement AusArts – India: films, arts, literature, a two-year Australian cultural promotion launched recently to portray the vitality and innovation of current Australian arts practice," added the High Commissioner.
With their iridescent colour and delicate line drawing, there is a strong influence of the desert in the artists' works. Both artists come from the far north of Western Australia, a vast land of apparent emptiness yet revealing of infinite subtle and different shades, quite similar to the landscape of Rajasthan and northern Gujarat.
Pippin Drysdale’s ceramic series Tanami Traces in Drawn from the Edge takes inspiration from earthy ochres contrasting with splurges of orange, red, pink, turquoise and black; rocky outcrops, ravines and chasms; and spinifex grasses. Her work comprises finely incised and brushed lines on the surfaces of vessels that part way between representation and abstraction. The tall, graceful, porcelain conical containers display deep voids of intense colour balanced with intricate tracery of lines on the outer surfaces.
Maggie Baxter uses ancient craft processes as a means of contemporary expression. Her work is also inspired by the cutting and tailoring techniques of churidar and many of the works in this exhibition are studies into the way that fabric changes by diagonal folding and stitching. In some instances, diagonals have been created by appliqué, print and resist, but in others, whole fabrics have been constructed and then folded to form innovative self -lining shawls wraps, and hangings.
Drawn from the Edge exhibition will be on view at the Anant Gallery, D 299 Defence Colony, New Delhi from Friday, 17 February 6:30 pm to 2 March 2006 from 11am to 7 pm, except Mondays.
For further information, please contact Ms Mamta Singhania, Anant Art Gallery on 011 5155 4775/5155 4776.