A contemporary response to Margaret Olley

AN EXHIBITION of paintings responding to Margaret Olley’s work will open at the Tweed Regional Gallery today, Friday, August 23.

A Dictionary for Painting: Margaret Olley, Robert Malherbe and Keith Burt invited contemporary painters Malherbe and Burt for a residency at the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio.

The artists created new works in response to objects featured in the gallery’s recreation of Margaret Olley’s home studio.

Blue Mountains-based artist Robert Malherbe relished the opportunity to delve deeper into Olley’s work. “Margaret Olley understood that in painting, simple objects can vibrate with a poignant life,” Malherbe said. “There’s pleasure in arranging ordinary objects onto a tabletop as if they were repertory actors on stage.”

The popular residency is a unique asset to the gallery and sustains a creative hub far beyond the exhibition. Brisbane-based artist Keith Burt said the residency had given him unique insight into Olley’s world.

“Having access to the Margaret Olley Art Centre and selecting objects from her home studio was an exciting and unique way to approach a new series of works,” Burt said.

“I believe that still life painting is a look into the mind of an artist and their studio and to have the opportunity to work directly with Margaret’s personal objects gave me a unique insight into her world.”

Margaret Olley’s home studio in Paddington, Sydney, was the site and subject of her painting for half a century. An ecosystem of art and life, the building’s re-creation at the gallery is a rich portal into Olley’s practice. Her biographer, Christine France, said the artist’s house ‘was a living part of her art’ and that ‘in the midst of her art and her life, she produced some of her best work’.

Alongside paintings by Margaret Olley from private and public collections, the new works by Malherbe and Burt allow visitors to appreciate Olley’s many decades of work and to consider them in a contemporary context.

For details on A Dictionary for Painting: Margaret Olley, Robert Malherbe and Keith Burt and an accompanying range of activities and events, visit gallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/whats-on