Thursday 30 May 2019



On the wall of my home I have this print "Catherine La Rose". I inherited it from my late grandmother who bought it in Auckland, New Zealand in the 1960s. It is by the Russian artist Vladimir Tretchikoff. My grandmother also had another print by him on her lounge room wall but no one in the family knows where that one went. As a child I was completely captivated by these prints and literally stared at them for hours (in the manic obsessive way that only an Aspergers person can do!) In expressing my own art I acknowledge still holding those images in my unconscious mind, as I feel they are deeply embedded in the iconography that became a driver for my own desire to be a visual artist.

I need to take a break away from all this intense discussion for a few days. My art, housekeeping and various other obligations are all being neglected. In a moment I have to leave for a doctors appointment to discuss dealing with my arthritis. There won't be much more art the way my right hand is already curling into a claw. I cannot make a fist or have the strength in my index finger to spray the nozzle on my perfume bottle. The first is pretty necessary for a feminist and the last I can probably give up.

Give me 2-3 days then I'll be back to discuss "Orientalism" in Western art and how it may or may not be a legitimate offence to Asian and Middle Eastern women. Of course we'll go right back, way before Tretchikoff, to the awful Victorian instigators who started it. Undoubtedly dirty, repressed buggers, but alas there are men everywhere who lust over a bit of lady booby and butt.



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If you are interested in buying an artwork or booking a commission, please email me at pearl@upstairs-art.com.au