Rag Rug “No Doormat” by Maggie Hickey.
Women and men march from Ryrie Park to the Arts Centre as part of an annual demonstration about violence against women.
Penny Crawford’s “Feral Goats” in the Exhibition.
The ‘Reclaim The Night Women’s Exhibition’ at the ‘Braidwood Community Arts Centre’ is inspiringly varied. There are richly coloured rag rugs, a photograph of a fearful face (appropriate for the ‘Reclaim the Night’ occasion), paintings, drawings, silk screen, handmade felt, painting with bitumen, leather clad stones, digital prints, quilts, weavings and the list goes on. But this is much more that a display of art’s possibilities. Piece after piece grabs the wandering viewer. There’s visual invention to feed on, and lots of it. All of which calls to mind the situation as it was with the visual arts, in Australia and pretty much everywhere, up to the 1980s. Back then there were ‘real artists’ (which meant men who painted nationalistic landscapes etc) and women whose productions were necessarily of less significance. These days it’s what women painted in the first half of the 20th century that really stands up. Think Nora Heyson, Joy Hester, Grace Cossington Smith and so many others.
Somehow art requires more than mere careerism and production for a market. And that ‘more’ is the delight rewarding an adventure into the unknown. I’m not getting into the game here of naming names because for those who have produced arresting work for the exhibition not to be named is frequently taken as a form of judgement. But the exhibition is well worth a visit, prices are as they should be: very low. And there is a lot of fun to be had with embroidery on canvas and drawings of bugs and reference to the Greek virgin huntress together with Pegasus. Congratulations to the women of Braidwood.