Gria Shead

En Plein Air | Works From the Sidney Nolan Trust

16 July — 31 July 2020

Born 1972
Lives and works in Sydney

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Represented by nanda\hobbs

 

Welsh Marches paintings
and Kate Kelly Prints

I arrived at the Sidney Nolan Trust’s property The Rodd, Presteigne, UK, in July 2019 to begin my month-long residency. Of course, I had studied numerous sources in the months before leaving Australia, but any number of images and renderings could not convey the essence of the place—which began to be palpable even as I navigated the hedgerow-lined roads that wind through south-east Wales, leading to Presteigne. Nature—abundant and embracing—was omnipresent, even in the details defining small towns and certainly in the marvel of hedgerows abuzz with summer life. It was—after the desiccation I had left behind in drought-stricken Australia—like being transported through a long portal. Then, after another bend and a dip in the road — The Rodd’s gates, and the castle-like spires of the heritage house Nolan called home.

Nolan left Australia in 1951 and from then on the United Kingdom was his place of domicile. In 1983 he settled at the The Rodd, Herefordshire, a piece of ancient Britain that bore no resemblance to any part of the country of his birth.

There to experience Nolan’s legacy, in such a landscape and in such a season it was easy to re-spond to the peripatetic impulse—Nolan’s hallmark—and explore the mythopoetic contours and tra-jectories that link landscape to landscape, progenitor to legatee, and function to form. I could paint the landscape that saturated my four weeks of last year’s Northern Hemisphere summer on the border of Herefordshire and Wales with a different palette and with marks that referred to recon-nections otherwise unconfigured.

Back at the studio I focused on developing—with the assistance of Emeritus Professor David Ferry (Printmaking)—a series of prints based on my first series of paintings based on the life of Kate Kelly that I had shown at Nanda\Hobbs in 2014. I chose linocuts to reference the term ‘cutting out’. I cut out the linos on rainy days when I couldn’t walk out to paint. The studio—a sunroom—opened out to the garden, completely secluded. I could cut all day until the light faded completely, at 9 pm. Then, it was Professor Ferry’s turn—to make a proof. By the end of the residency I had completed a set of twelve linocuts, and then Professor Ferry and I spent a full day working on the lithograph (printed on Arthur Boyd’s press) which culminated in the prints ‘O.G. Kate Kelly’ and ‘True Blue Kelly’.

Nolan introduced Kate Kelly to the visual-art history of the Kelly Family with his superlative painting ‘Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly’. While Kate’s identity as a key player had previously been acknowledged in Australia’s first-ever black-and-white feature film The Story of the Kelly Gang (made by Charles Tait and released in 1906), somewhere around the 1970s she was cut out of Australian history.

For Sidney Nolan, Kelly was a touchstone throughout his life. The classicism of the trope ensured that the cultivated and concerned expatriate found it fertile, with a compass that reached well be-yond country Victoria, Australia. Fittingly my Sidney Nolan Trust residency enabled me to consoli-date my Kate-specific research in situ, culminating in my August 2019 exhibition of the paintings, linocuts and lithographs that I produced in the apt and integral setting of the property that sustains the Sidney Nolan historical, sociological and aesthetic legacy.

Gria Shead
July, 2020

Sidney Nolan Trust

\ Exhibition featured works

Gria Shead

Always Bright with glittering sun

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 48 x 58cm framed

Gria Shead

Breaker Kate

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Dressing her wound

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Family meeting after Fitzpatrick's visit

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Fields open their hearts

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 54 x 64cm

Gria Shead

For Each Man Marvelled

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

GLENROWAN AFTERMATH - THE SISTERS ARRIVE

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Give him peace at last

2019 / Edition of 50 \ LInocut \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Incognito

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Kate and Maggie

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Kate and Maggie

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Kate with Joe

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Kate with Joe

2019 \ Hand coloured linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

Ned

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

O.G Kate Kelly

2019 \ Giclee print from original lithograph and collage / Edition of 50 \ 80 x 100cm framed

Gria Shead

Swifts cut the thin air

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 54 x 64cm framed

SOLD

Gria Shead

The Shade of Trees

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 59 x 47cm framed

SOLD

Gria Shead

The Visitor

2019 \ Hand coloured linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

The joyful crops

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 54 x 64cm framed

Gria Shead

The visitor

2019 \ Linocut / Edition of 50 \ 15 x 22.5cm

Gria Shead

True Blue Kelly

2019 \ Giclee print from original lithograph and collage / Edition of 50 \ 80 x 100cm framed

Gria Shead

When the wild thickets echo to the song of birds

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 54 x 89cm framed

SOLD

Gria Shead

chorus of buds in the field

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 54 x 64cm framed

SOLD

Gria Shead

when the first cattle drank in the dawn

2019 \ Acrylic polymer on canvas \ 49 x 59cm framed

\ Other exhibitions

David Fairbairn

THE SPACE BETWEEN THE LINES

24 October — 16 November 2024

Adam Nudelman

UNDER THE CANOPY OF A LOST PARADISE

23 October — 16 November 2024

Jun Chen

RED LAND

24 September — 19 October 2024

Contact Us

to find out more about En Plein Air | Works From the Sidney Nolan Trust.

12 - 14 Meagher Street Chippendale, NSW 2008
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm Saturday, 11am - 4pm Closed Public Holidays (and Easter Saturday)