The studio of Australian painter Margaret Olley was filled to the brim with non-Western souvenirs, books, vases of dried flowers and tubes of paint. With Olley’s oeuvre focused on still life and interiors, her studio was clearly a place of inspiration and industry.
Now preserved as part of the Margaret Olley Art Centre at Tweed Regional Gallery, Olley’s studio and sitting room were the inspiration point for a series of new still life paintings by Mirra Whale, India Mark and Laura Jones. With the studio recreation containing original architectural features relocated from Olley’s home in Sydney, and over 20,000 objects from her vast personal collection, the artists were able to connect with Olley’s inspirations on a deeply personal level.
“Olley’s home studio was both site and subject matter for her work for nearly 50 years, so I feel it’s vital the re-creation is still dynamic subject matter for artists,” explains curator Ingrid Hedgcock. In Light & Life, Hedgcock has paired the works by Whale, Mark, and Jones with examples of Olley’s still life paintings to reiterate her enduring legacy for a contemporary audience.
In the process of bringing the works together, Hedgcock says she could see contemporary connections to different stages of Olley’s long career. “Jones’s Dahlias with blue crystal and striped jug, 2023, connects to Olley’s work in the early 1960s when she was experimenting with colour and still life as subject matter, while Mark draws from the following decade when Olley arranged objects on drawers and tabletops with attention to form, space and light. Whale looks to Olley’s later work—domestic still lifes with a darker, more sombre poetry—in her series of charcoal on linen images.”
Linking past and present joys with natural beauty and the unassuming comforts of home, Light & Life revels in what Hedgcock calls Olley’s “humble celebration of the everyday”. As Brisbane-based gallerist Philip Bacon said during the artist’s memorial service in 2011, Olley’s work will continue to resonate because “simple is better than complicated, quiet is better than noisy, and what is close at hand is better than that which has to be sought”.
Light & Life: Margaret Olley, Laura Jones, India Mark and Mirra Whale
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre
On now—28 April
This article was originally published in the January/February 2024 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Suggested Reading
The ceramics of the Central Desert
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
About Face mirrors the alluring world of contemporary portrait painting
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
Jane O'Sullivan
Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana and inherited influence
In Anmatyerr artist Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne—which focuses on the Central Desert food source Arnwekety (bush plum)—the influence and love of her Country and culture is palpable. Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana is now showing at Niagara Galleries.
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
Ellen Dahl creates a dialogue between places
In her latest exhibition at THIS IS NO FANTASY, Ellen Dahl presents works from an ongoing photographic series that has captured many sites—from the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard to Tasmania—creating a dialogue between works that center place.
Sally Gearon
Self reflections with Jack Ball
In his latest exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Jack Ball challenges the extractive history of the archive while searching for shapes that can articulate the complexity of trans life.
Josephine Mead
Lindy Lee is keeping faith
With a 50-year practice exploring her Chinese heritage, longing and belonging, Zen spiritualism and the endless nature of being, Lindy Lee is now unveiling the pinnacle of her art.