I thought I would talk about some of my favourite artists over the next few blogs and one of my absolute favourites is Rosalie Gascoigne. Sadly, this fabulous women is no longer with us (she passed in 1999) but she sits on my shoulder as a personal and artistic mentor.
Born in New Zealand, she identified as an Australian, particularly once she married her Astronomer husband Ben. She lived as a young wife and mother at Mt Stromlo, an isolated location near Canberra and although she loved the Australian Bush around her, she didn't love the role of housewife and mother she was expected to embrace. That resistance to her expected role as a woman is a point of resonance I share with her.
In her case, she began to frequent local rubbish dumps and the like, adopting discarded items and giving them new life in her assemblage sculptures. She saw these preloved items as having a patina that couldn't be replicated in new objects and which came imbued with meaning that added to her work. This is something else I strongly identify with as an artist - I do use new items along with the old, but they are juxtaposed in terms of meaning - bringing new meaning to them in the work.
Gascoigne based many of her sculptures on her training in Ikebana, creating many unique and unusual sculptures, the likes of which Australia had not seen before. Her work was a compulsion, and she continued with it thanks to support from artist and curator friends, but she never did fit into her expected role as a woman in mid 20th Century Australia.
Gascoigne's first exhibition at the age of 56 was a sellout and she was the first female artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. Possibly best known for her works using disused road signs and soft drink crates, she will always be a shining light to me in terms of older female Australian Artists. Her work came from a place deep within her psyche - she wasn't interested in trends, what galleries thought they wanted or what everyone else was doing. Nonetheless, she and her work are revered on a global scale. I encourage you to investigate her work and her life further .
The following is a link with a youtube interview she did that will explain her views further.
An interview with Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne.
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