Paige de Vanny Artist Melbourne

A couple of remarkable portraits from young Melbourne Australia artist Paige de Vanny from her exhibition at Hogan Gallery Smith St Collingwood

Babushka Burka Dolls Art Work Protest Ballarat

2 September, 2010 3:28PM AEST
Babushka dolls encourage thought about the burka
By Margaret Burin

A collection of Russian matryoshka dolls recently acquired by the Art Gallery of Ballarat delves into the burka's impact on the identity of women.

Penny Byrne came up with the idea for her artwork titled Swat when reading an article about the Taliban moving across the Afghanistan border and enforcing Sharia Law - the code of law based on the Koran - in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

After more than a year of insurgency, the Taliban started taking control of the Swat Valley in August 2008 and in February 2009 Pakistan agreed to introduce Sharia Law as part of a peace deal.
"The day that that happened, women just disappeared off the streets," Penny says.
"Sharia Law is quite prescriptive about the way women can behave and also what women are expected to wear and one of the things is that they are supposed to wear full burkas."
She says she was horrified by stories of women being shot for not wearing the burka.
"The work I guess for me was responding to that article and imagining how it would be if it happened here for instance, that women just suddenly were not visible in society anymore.
"That's why it starts from the biggest doll, still being able to see her face and then as they get smaller and smaller and smaller, and they get paler and paler and paler, right at the end they just disappear."

While Pakistan regained control of the Swat Valley in May 2009 and women returned have since returned to school and work, there are fears the Taliban will regain power amid the Pakistan flood disaster. 

Penny says she follows the topical burka debate right across the world. "I guess women and the burka is an issue worldwide."

Penny Byrne grew up in Mildura and went to boarding school at Ballarat Grammar for a short period in the mid-1980s. She is now a Melbourne-based ceramics conservator and artist.
Swat is on display in the Art Gallery of Ballarat's Recent Acquisitions exhibition.

Albert Tucker King's Arcade (1937) Painting Evolution

Albert Tucker - Preliminary Photograph for Painting of "King's Arcade" (1937) Rear Entrance  (taken from Armadale Station Exit)

Albert Tucker - Second Preliminary Photograph for Painting of "King's Arcade" (1937) (taken from Armadale Station Exit)

Albert Tucker - Study for painting "King's Arcade" (1937)

Albert TUCKER (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 1914-1999) King's Arcade (1937) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
(oil painting 51.5cm high x 46.2cm wide)

Evie Barrow - Two Photographs - 1/ Stonnington Council Information Board & 2/ View Towards Kings Arcade from Armadale Station Exit (2011)

Armadale Station Exit (Point of View of Original Photograph)

Armadale Station Exit at opposite end of Kingsway from King's Arcade (Point of View of Original Photograph)

Vermeer's Maps

World Maps in Vermeer's painting reflect the power and reach of the Dutch seaborne empire and the emergence of mapmaking as a pursuit of the superrich Dutch merchants.

With Dutch naval power rising rapidly as a major force from the late 16th century, the Netherlands dominated global commerce during the second half of the 17th century during a cultural flowering known as the Dutch Golden Age.

At the time maps were popular among prosperous citizens: they were good to look at as well as educational and useful for showing off their owners’ interest in geography and politics and even their patriotism. This trend is very eloquently demonstrated in the most accurate witnesses of everyday-life scenes of the time: the famous interior paintings of the 17th century Dutch masters, Vermeer being the most remarkable amongst them.

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.