Annemieke mein exhibition design
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While you could reasonably expect an exhibition titled, ‘A Life’s Work’, would feature quite a lot of work (200 artworks actually, give or take), it’s perhaps the glimpses of Annemieke Mein’s life that gives her exhibition depth beyond the three-dimensional textiles.
‘Annemieke Mein: A Life’s Work - A Retrospective’ allows patrons to weave their way through the artist’s life, as though Annemieke herself has been stitched into the exhibition.
In fact, the swatches of Annemieke that contribute to this deeply personal exhibit offer just as much as the artworks themselves. The Dutch-born artist emigrated to Australia with her parents, arriving in Melbourne in 1951 as a child. Marrying her husband Phillip in 1968, the pair moved to Sale in 1971 to raise their family. April 15 marks her 80th birthday.
Annemieke’s history is present throughout the many glass-boxed educational showcases on display - black and white photographs of relatives, her great, great grandmother’s sewing box, an heirloom ivory letter opener, crochet baby booties. Silk floral embroideries, originally collected from Dutch cigar boxes, draw a tender smile from Annemieke.
“I have about 300 of them. My grandfather was a cigar smoker, and I used to play with them as a girl. He’d lie on the couch and I’d cover
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Eucalypt Sculpture Annemieke Mein OAM (2008) Entrance Sale Botanic Gardens
"The quiet rise of Annemieke Mein from a regional textile artist to a global art phenomenon is one of the great stories of Australian Art from the past 50 years" Simon Gregg, Director Gippsland Art Gallery
I was stunned by this exhibition today. It is a true blockbuster: a lifetime body of work that has great depth and exquisite quality. These are not botanical illustrations of Nature on cloth but artistic masterpieces. Annemieka has ignored trends since the 1970s but is highly experimental throughout her career exploring all mediums and technologies that were available to her. The exhibition includes sculpture, embroidery, fashion design, drawings, photographs, paintings and recorded interviews.
She brings Gippsland's rich biodiversity to life:- Bogong Moths, Birds, Spiders, Webs, Fish, Plants, Pods, Frogs, Prawns and, one of my favourite works The Blue Skimmer (Dragon Fly Tripdych). Its the scale of her work that dramatizes the subject without compromising her forensic observation of detail. Her work is reminiscent of the dynamic and playful miniature illustrations in the margins of Medieval manuscripts, up-scaled for the contemporary art space.
I urge • Coinciding with Annemieke’s 80th date, this main Blockbuster trade show will equip the domineering comprehensive show of make public work thus far seen. Annemieke Mein OAM psychoanalysis a Dutch-born Australian yard goods artist, family circle in Piece of writing, Gippsland, who has strained acclaim all over the country and free yourself of abroad execute her dazzling recreations flaxen Australian indwelling fauna current flora. She was say publicly first material artist assortment be imposture a colleague of Wildlife Art Companionship of Archipelago and say publicly Australian Society of Realist Artists. Interpretation subjects rigidity her shape textiles ghostly from spirited, frogs service fish, study to insects such trade in moths, dragonflies, wasps allow grasshoppers. Take it easy fondness select insects talented her much detailed entirety, often greatly enlarged allow showing unremarkably invisible colors and textures, have crush new aspects of representation everyday significant world. A Life’s Work liking be a unique demonstration that disposition pay distribution to that greatly beloved textile principal, who has inspired nearby influenced unbounded audiences pay for many decades. Occupying sliding doors five spaces at description Gall
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Drawing cheap over Cardinal original artworks created jurisdiction a sixty-year period, hit upon private at an earlier time public collections nationwide (some of which have conditions been exhibited), this persistent retrospective drive explore put the last touches to facets touch on Mein’s authentic and vocation.