The tradition of women in art

WOMEN and the arts in central Victoria will be the focus of a talk by Dr Juliette Peers at the Eureka Centre next week.

Her presentation will uncover the role of local artistic women from the goldrush to today.

“The purpose of my talk is to give a backstory to what I think everyone knows and is quite proud of; the strong tradition of creativity and making in central Victoria,” said Dr Peers.

“It’s to highlight the female presence in the area which goes back over a century.”

Dr Peers is an art historian, curator and writer based in Ballarat, who has curated projects at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and is an associate curator at the Gippsland Art Gallery.

“I have been researching women artists since the 1980s,” she said.

“I am very interested in obscure artists, and I started looking through old newspapers around 30 or 40 years ago and I found there were a lot more active artists in Australia than those seen on gallery walls.

“We are sort of only looking at the tip of the iceberg and there are many more interesting artists and many of these are women.”

Dr Peers said she hopes attendees learn that women played an active role in the arts community.

“There have always been women artists in Australia and they’ve always had to struggle until very recently,” she said.

“There was always an assumption that women weren’t very good, which is wrong when you look at their works, or that they didn’t do much.

“We can see them being active in all sorts of areas.”Dr Peers’ talk will be on Thursday 6 June from 5.30pm and no booking is required.