in the work of Elizabeth Gower
Whilst many women attended art schools in Australia in the 1960s and '70s very few actually made a career of their art practice. Hardly any were selected for inclusion in public museums and fewer still were represented in the official histories of art of the time. Further, access to public exhibition spaces for female artists was rare during these years as were professional opportunities in the institutions of art education. Worse still, the climate of the time tended to regard women's art as somehow less than serious. And as Ann Newmarch has said: 'I used to believe that art was apolitical, but in 1970, with the Women's Movement and the Vietnam War, I came to see, along with many others, that, in fact all art is political'.1 From this environment of inequality and restricted opportunity Elizabeth Gower's practice developed.
Since the 1970s, Gower may not have overtly raised a political flag, nevertheless her work has explored feminist, urban and ecological concerns. The recent survey shows of her work drew attention to the way she has consistently examined issues of gender and material culture in subtle and nuanced ways. At Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Melbourne, 'Beyond the Everyday' included a selection of her large-scale works. Meanwhile, two exhibitions of her smaller works, 'Line of Thought' and 'The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman', were held at Sutton Gallery, also during late 2002. The first installation followed the ramifying lines of the artist 's thought processes; the second documented twenty-eight years of the artist in her studio. Both surveys provided us with a comprehensive look at Gower's experimental approach to both medium and subject matter.
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