5 kent street
henley beach
sa 5022
open: wed to sat 1 - 5
kay lawrence
Lineage, 2009
Woven tapestry 3 w/cm
Cotton warp; linen, cotton and wool weft
Each tapestry 37 x 30 cm
These tea towels present a kind of lineage. Bought in the 1960’s by my grandmother and my great aunt, they were used daily, folded and stacked, passed on to my uncle and finally in 2008 inherited by me. Before they migrated to Australia from the United Kingdom in the late 1920s my grandmother, Blanche, was a children’s nanny, my great aunt Amy, an assistant cook in a school. My life has had opportunities unimaginable to young women coming to maturity in the early years of the 20th century. But our lives are linked through the daily routines of domestic life, cooking, cleaning, using cups and bowls, washing and drying them with linen or cotton cloths. Despite the social upheavals and the changing roles of women in the last one hundred years these routines represent a small continuity.
Most of the thirty one tea towels were woven with simple stripes and checks. Stripes are fundamental to the weaving process. They visually describe the structure of the fabric, the repetitive process of laying the weft in the warp, working from side to side to build the cloth row by row. The stripes and checks also recall how these cloths are used, in the repetitive rituals of drying and mopping up that maintain the order of the kitchen. For me these simple images of striped and checked tea towels signify domestic order and familial connection. I was also thinking of the painter Agnes Martin as I made them, particularly the meditative simplicity of her hand drawn lines and grids. But unlike Martin’s work, these images do not aim to evoke a transcendent spirituality, but refer to their origins as objects in the physical world casting a slight shadow, at the same time as suggesting in their structure, the repetitive rhythms of the body engaged in domestic work.
kay lawrence
Kay Lawrence was born in Canberra and spent her childhood in Papua New Guinea before moving to South Australia as a teenager. She studied at the South Australian School of Art in the 1960s and began exhibiting as a painter in 1970. She later studied tapestry weaving at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, and has since developed an international profile as a tapestry weaver as well as initiating the community tapestry movement in South Australia.
As well as undertaking major commissions for public spaces her work has been shown in many exhibitions Australia and overseas. In 1988 she completed two commissions for Parliament House in Canberra. In 1989 was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her work designing and coordinating the making of the Parliament House Embroidery. In 1999 the University of Queensland Art Museum showed her work in a joint retrospective exhibition, Close Ties; Kay Lawrence and Marcel Marois. A monograph on her work was published by Telos Press in the UK in 2002.
She is currently Professor of Visual Art in the School of Art Architecture and Design, University of South Australia. Her recent work explores the legacy of white settler society in Australia, while also continuing a strand of work focused on women’s domestic lives.
kay lawrence - cv
Professor Kay Lawrence AM
Professor of Visual Art, School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia
| QUALIFICATIONS | |
| 1967 | Dip T (Art) South Australian School of Art |
| 1977/78 | Postgraduate year Tapestry Studios Edinburgh College of Art |
| EMPLOYMENT | |
| 2002 to 2008 | Professor and Head, South Australian School of Art |
| 2001 | Portfolio Leader of Research, South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia |
| 1995 to 2000 | Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Textiles Studios, University of South Australia |
| 1971 - 1994 | Taught full & part time; Painting Print making Sculpture South Australian School of Art University of South Australia |
| RECENT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE | |
| 2008 | Convenor, Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) Conference, Adelaide |
| 2002 | Consultant, Adelaide Festival 2002 Intertwine event, workshops and forum |
| 1997 | Convenor National conference Weaving Culture Camp Coorong, SA Dec |
| 1997 | International artists retreat convenor Lake Mungo Project, July, Lake Mungo NSW |
| 1994 - 1995 | Joint curator Texts from the Edge, Tapestry & identity in Australia, exhibition & symposium |
| 1990 - 1992 | International symposium on woven tapestry, convenor Distant Lives/Shared Voices, Lódz Poland |
| RECENT SELECTED EXHIBITIONS | |
| 2009 | Distilled Matter, Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery, Tucson, Arizona, USA |
| 2008 | This everything water, South Australian School of Art Gallery, 2008 Adelaide Festival |
| 2006 | 17th Tamworth Textile Biennial In the world: head, hand, heart Tamworth City Gallery, |
| 2004 | Fabrics of Change, Trading Identities Flinders University City Gallery, Adelaide |
| 2002 | Material Culture Australian National Gallery, Canberra |
| 2002 | Weaving the Murray Art Gallery of South Australia & Prospect Gallery then touring SA |
| 2001 | Frisson;13th Tamworth Textile Biennale Tamworth Regional Gallery, touring Australia |
| 2000 | Chemistry Art Gallery of South Australia |
| 1999 | Close Ties , Kay Lawrence and Marcel Marois University of Queensland Art Museum, touring Australia |
| RECENT SELECTED PUBLICATIONS | |
| 2007 | A Story is like a River, Kay Lawrence and Nici Cumpston, in ‘Fresh Water. New perspectives on Water in Australia’ edited E Potter, A Mackinnon, Stephen McKenzie, Jennifer McKay’ Melbourne University Press, |
| 2005 | Weaving the Murray: Mapping Connection and Loss Textile vol 3, Issue 2 pp130 – 149 Berg Publishers UK |
| 2004 | Weaving’ An encounter between the Ngarrindjeri, the British and the French, in ‘Reinventing Textiles Vol 3, ‘Postcolonialism and Creativity’ Telos Art Publishing UK |
| 2002 | Kay Lawrence Telos Art Publishing UK Portfolio Collection No 9. Essay by Diana Wood Conroy |
| 2001 | Home is where we start from Kay Lawrence and Lindsay Obermeyer in ‘Reinventing Textiles Vol 2, Gender and Identity’ Telos Art Publishing UK |
| RECENT SELECTED AWARDS, GRANTS | |
| 2007 | Project grant, Arts SA |
| 1998 | H.C.Coombs Creative Arts Fellow Australian National University |
| 199,619,971,998 | Australian Research Council small grants $40,000 Significant Women Artists at the South Australian School of Art Kay Lawrence, Cathy Speck |
| 1996 | Fellowship $35,000 Visual Arts/Craft Fund Australia Council |
| 1989 | Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to the arts as designer, Parliament House Embroidery |
| COMMISSIONS | |
| 2002-3 | Text, textile and a coil of string, Commissioned artwork for Glazed Entry, State Library of South Australia |
| 1995 - 1996 | Tapestry Daughter for Art Gallery of South Australia |
| 1990 - 1992 | Major tapestry commissioned for Sembler Building St Petersburg, Florida, USA |
| 1987 - 1988 | Major tapestry commissioned for the Prime Minister's Suite in new Parliament House, Canberra |
| 1984 - 1986 | Major commission designer and co-ordinator Parliament House embroidery, Parliament House, Canberra. |
| ARTIST IN COMMUNITY | |
| 1999 - 2001 | Coordinator Barbara Hanrahan Community Tapestry Project |
| 1993 | Designer Women's Suffrage Centenary Community Tapestries for the South Australian Parliament |
| 1989 | Designer Regency Park Community Tapestry for the Regency Park Centre for the young disabled |
| 1981-85 | Salisbury Community Tapestry, Hills Community Tapestry, Crafers School Tapestry, Millicent Community Tapestry |
| RECENT PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS | |
| 2004 - 2007 | President, Craft Australia |
| 2002 - 2008 | National Executive, ACUADS Australian Council of Art and Design Schools |
| COLLECTIONS | |
| National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Museum and Art and Art Gallery, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Tamworth Art Gallery, Parliament House, Canberra, Parliament House, Adelaide, University of South Australia, private collections | |