Curator: David Siebert
My intention in reviewing this exhibition is not to undertake an analysis of the individual artists and their work, but rather to examine Seven Queensland Women Artists of Distinction as a curatorial exercise.
The exhibition features work by Penny Algar, Irene Amos, Nora Anson-Vanbeek, Linda Carroll, Marian Drew, Pat Hoffie and Denise Johnson and was originally curated by David Siebert for the Women in the Arts Festival in Rockhampton in early 1987 where "it was hoped these works might inspire and encourage both developing and more mature artists in further developing their own work".
Indeed the exhibition does present a diverse body of work from seven mature artists, each striving in a very different way to elucidate her stated concerns. Yet I found the exhibition as a whole rather unresolved as it raised important questions which were neither acknowledged nor adequately addressed, and this I feel was ultimately a curatorial problem.
For instance, the title Seven Queensland Women Artists of Distinction, although perhaps intended to be purely descriptive, was bound to raise questions and expectations about the curatorial premise for the exhibition. In his introduction to the accompanying catalogue, curator David Siebert provides something of an answer when he states: "It was hoped in the original provincial context and certainly in the present one, that this work in some way challenges the viewer's notions of art and ideas. Art is not doing its job if it merely reinforces the status-quo, giving exactly what is expected. Art is at its best and most meaningful when it is provocative and stimulating".
While this exhibition may or may not have achieved this aim in Rockhampton, it seems to me that to have