A homage to women artists in Queensland, past and present
The Centre Gallery's wood-panelled, corporate "boardroom" was by no means an ideal venue to present a tribute to Queensland's women artists. Furthermore a visit to this exhibition was like taking an historical journey; a slightly troubling trip back into feminist thinking of the 1970s. Undoubtedly the project was a laudable one, conceived and put together with zeal and very real determination. Individually there were some fine pieces shown and the exercise a general morale booster for Queensland women artists. Yet the result was in many ways passé and somewhat less than stimulating. As a further example of Bicentennial rhetoric, focusing on "cultural achievement", it effectively highlighted the difficulties inherent in this form of panegyric. At the same time it sounded a warning to those intent on provincial introspection.
Unhappily the tone of the exhibition was set by Judy Watson's five sepulchral but haunting sentinels guarding the foyer, a funereal quilt by Ruth Stoneley, Bessie Gibson's limp Daisies and a melancholy lavender catalogue cover. The latter did nothing to dispel the visitor's uneasy sense of "in memoriam". The very concept of an art historical survey to pay its respects to as many notable women artists as possible (although, one might add, remarkably few Aboriginal women) unfortunately testifies to "the masculine values that prevail". At best such an exercise could only result in an impasse. It could prove either that women artists in Queensland were as good as or (even worse) more incompetent and less innovative than their masculine counterparts. The resulting impression was that Queensland women artists, just like men, had produced respectable art. This is the kind of bind into which early feminist thinking was inevitably drawn.
There is some
Pat Hoffie, Re-Assessment (All Form, No Content), 1987. Courtesy the Centre Gallery, Surfers Paradise.
