Annemieke mein exhibition design
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Regular visitors will not be disappointed and, following the tradition set by previous exhibitions, there will be a few extra surprises in store.
A visitor favourite and the poster child of her recent retrospective exhibition A Life’s Work, Thornbills (1993) makes a welcome return to the Gallery for Exhibition 12. Now adorning jigsaw puzzles and tea towels nationwide, Thornbills marked a high point in Annemieke’s career. As we often see in Annemieke’s compositions, the design simplicity of Thornbills belies the complexity of the many different elements, two dimensional and three dimensional. However, each design element is applied to allow the two friendly thornbills in the foreground to occupy the central role. ‘The birds’ eyes were the most difficult and exacting part of the work’, remembers Annemieke. ‘I wanted them to stare and follow the viewer around the room’. Thornbills is joined—for the first time ever—by Young Thornbills (1992), a paint and stitch trial that w
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Eucalypt Sculpture Annemieke Mein OAM (2008) Entrance Sale Botanic Gardens
"The quiet rise of Annemieke Mein from a regional textile artist to a global art phenomenon is one of the great stories of Australian Art from the past 50 years" Simon Gregg, Director Gippsland Art Gallery
I was stunned by this exhibition today. It is a true blockbuster: a lifetime body of work that has great depth and exquisite quality. These are not botanical illustrations of Nature on cloth but artistic masterpieces. Annemieka has ignored trends since the 1970s but is highly experimental throughout her career exploring all mediums and technologies that were available to her. The exhibition includes sculpture, embroidery, fashion design, drawings, photographs, paintings and recorded interviews.
She brings Gippsland's rich biodiversity to life:- Bogong Moths, Birds, Spiders, Webs, Fish, Plants, Pods, Frogs, Prawns and, one of my favourite works The Blue Skimmer (Dr • While you could reasonably expect an exhibition titled, ‘A Life’s Work’, would feature quite a lot of work (200 artworks actually, give or take), it’s perhaps the glimpses of Annemieke Mein’s life that gives her exhibition depth beyond the three-dimensional textiles. ‘Annemieke Mein: A Life’s Work - A Retrospective’ allows patrons to weave their way through the artist’s life, as though Annemieke herself has been stitched into the exhibition. In fact, the swatches of Annemieke that contribute to this deeply anställda exhibit offer just as much as the artworks themselves. The Dutch-born artist emigrated to Australia with her parents, arriving in Melbourne in 1951 as a child. Marrying her husband Phillip in 1968, the pair moved to Sale in 1971 to raise their family. April 15 marks her 80th birthday. Annemieke’s history is present throughout the many glass-boxed educational showcases on display - black and vit photographs of relatives, her great, great grandmother’s sewing box,