Sylvia Convey

Last updated

Sylvia Convey
Born1948 (age 7475)
Germany
NationalityLatvian Australian

Sylvia Convey (born 1948) is a Latvian Australian self-taught artist known for her paintings, quilts and dolls.

Contents

Life

Sylvia Convey was born in a refugee camp at Itzehoe near Hamburg, Germany in 1948. [1] With her parents and elder sister she sailed to Australia on the Skaugum in early 1950. They were part of the first wave of immigrants to arrive in Australia after World War II, joining a large group of displaced Latvians that settled in Australia in the late 40s and early 50s. [2]

Work

As an outsider artist, her images are derived from her own day-to-day and oneiric experiences. She includes references to her ancestral heritage. Eroticism is also a dominant theme in her oeuvre.

A recurring thread in her work has been the blurring of boundaries between art forms. As a painter she rejected the primacy of canvas and used non-conventional surfaces. As a printmaker she has used textiles as much as paper and her sculptural muse finds expression in wonderfully exotic and exuberant cloth dolls. She approached quilt making in a spontaneous rather than formal manner as it gave her lifelong love of fabric and colour complete expression. She loves the sensual, tactile pleasure of handling cloth — tearing, cutting, printing and painting it to produce shimmering life embracing forms.

Collections and exhibits

Convey's work has been acquired by several institutions including the National Gallery of Australia, [3] Iwalewa Haus at the University of Bayreuth and the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Since 1972, she has exhibited in Australia, Germany, the United States, and France. Her work was part of the landmark exhibition Australian outsiders at the Halle St. Pierre in Paris in 2006. Convey's work was included in the 2010 exhibition 13 Australian Outsider Artists at Callan Park Gallery. [4] In 2015, a survey exhibition of Sylvia Convey and her husband's work titled Double Vision was held at the Orange Regional Gallery. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faith Ringgold</span> American artist (born 1930)

Faith Ringgold is an American painter, painting on different materials including fabric, a published author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</span> Aboriginal Australian artist (1910–1996)

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of Australian art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirka Mora</span> Australian artist (1928–2018)

Mirka Madeleine Mora was a French-born Australian visual artist and cultural figure who contributed significantly to the development of Australian contemporary art. Her media included drawing, painting, sculpture and mosaic.

Kathleen Petyarre was an Australian Aboriginal artist. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings. Petyarre's paintings have occasionally been compared to the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and even to those of J. M. W. Turner. She has won several awards and is considered one of the "most collectable artists in Australia". Her works are in great demand at auctions. Petyarre died on 24 November 2018, in Alice Springs, Australia.

Barbara Rossi was an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group that in the 1960s and 1970s turned to representational art. She first exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center in 1969. She is known for meticulously rendered drawings and cartoonish paintings, as well as a personal vernacular. She worked primarily by making reverse paintings on plexiglass that reference lowbrow and outsider art.

Vivienne Joyce Binns is an Australian artist known for her contribution to the Women's Art Movement in Australia, her engagement with feminism in her artwork, and her active advocacy within community arts. She works predominantly in painting.

Sylvia Snowden is an African American abstract painter who works with acrylics, oil pastels, and mixed media to create textured works that convey the "feel of paint". Many museums have hosted her art in exhibits, while several have added her works to their permanent collections.

Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri was a Pintupi-Luritja-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region, and sister of artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri. Daisy Jugadai lived and painted at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. There she played a significant role in the establishment of Ikuntji Women's Centre, where many artists of the region have worked.

Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri was an Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Born south-west of Balgo, Western Australia, in the 1950s Susie Bootja Bootja married artist Mick Gill Tjakamarra, with whom she had a son, Matthew Gill Tjupurrula.

Kitty Pultara Napaljarri is an Anmatyerre-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Born at Napperby Station east of Yuendumu, Northern Territory, she worked on the station and first learned to paint there around 1986. Her work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia and South Australian Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Westphal</span> Textile artist from Los Angeles, California, USA

Katherine Westphal was an American textile designer and fiber artist who helped to establish quilting as a fine art form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dindga McCannon</span> American artist (born 1947)

Dindga McCannon is an African-American artist, fiber artist, muralist, teacher author and illustrator. She co-founded the collective Where We At, Black Women Artists in 1971.

Malcolm Armstrong Harrison was a New Zealand clothing designer and textile artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Dunnewold</span> American textile artist and author

Jane Dunnewold is an American textile artist and author. She was previously the president of the Surface Design Association.

Cecelia Tapplette Pedescleaux, also known as Cely, is an African-American quilter of traditional and art quilts, inspired by historians, other African-American quilters, and quilt designs used during the Underground Railroad to communicate messages to slaves seeking freedom. Her quilts have been shown in China, France, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and in other locations in the United States. A solo show of 75 of her quilts were shown at the Le Musée de Free People of Color in New Orleans (2013–2014).

Bisa Butler is an American fiber artist who has created a new genre of quilting that has transformed the medium. Although quilting has long been considered a craft, her interdisciplinary methods -- which create quilts that look like paintings -- have catapulted quilting into the field of fine art. She is known for her vibrant, quilted portraits celebrating Black life, portraying both everyday people and notable historical figures. Her works now count among the permanent collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami and about a dozen other art museums nationwide. She has also exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Epcot Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and many other venues. In 2020, she was commissioned to quilt cover images for Time magazine, including the "Person of the Year" issue and its "100 Women of the Year" issue. With a multi-year wait list for private commissions, one of Butler's quilts sold at auction in 2021 for $75,000 USD.

Vicki Varvaressos is an Australian contemporary figurative expressionist painter. Sometimes referred to as a “transitional artist”, her painting style and subject matter has evolved throughout her career. Many of her works are of women and their experiences in Australia.

eX De Medici is an Australian artist, whose works include Installation art, painting, photography, and drawing. Her works often deal with concepts of power and violence, and recurring motifs include skulls, helmets, guns and the swastika symbol. She has exhibited widely across Australia and is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra Museum and Gallery, Australian state galleries and in private collections. de Medici was an Artist Fellow at the CSIRO for more than a decade, was awarded a print making fellowship in 2006, and was an official war artist for The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands. She will be a featured artist in the NGA's major exhibition in 2020-2021, Know My Name, that will feature Australian women artists 1900 to today.

Jacky Redgate is an Australian-based artist who works as a sculptor, an installation artist, and photographer. Her work has been recognised in major solo exhibitions surveying her work has been included in many group exhibitions in Australia, Japan and England. Her works are included in major Australian galleries including the National Gallery and key state galleries.

Mandy Martin was a contemporary Australian painter, printmaker and teacher. She was involved in the development of feminist art in Australia from the mid-1970s and as exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. In recent years she used the art she created as part of the ongoing debate on climate change, an area in which she was "prolifically active". Based in Canberra for many years, she was also a lecturer at the Australian National University (ANU) School of Art from 1978 to 2003. As well as being a visual artist, Martin was an adjunct professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.

References

  1. "NGA: Works in the collection: Starry Night". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  2. "History of immigration from Latvia". Museum Victoria Australia. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  3. "THIRTEEN AUSTRALIAN OUTSIDER ARTISTS - CURATED BY PHILIP HAMMIAL". University of Sydney. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  4. Gray, Brenda (30 May 2015). "AT THE GALLERY: inside outsider art at the Orange Regional Gallery". Central Western Daily. Retrieved 10 December 2017.