belinda allen

Hazelhurst celebrates

November 28, 2020November 28, 2020
by Belinda

Hazelhurst Arts Centre in Gymea in Sydney is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary, a great achievement in a suburban location not known for cultural activities. Since its inception on 2000 I have had the opportunity to exhibit my work there many times, both in the Regional Gallery where curated exhibitions are hosted, and in the Broadhurst Gallery which houses exhibitions from the local art community. It’s exciting to have my work included among 350 artists in this commemorative celebration, and even more exciting to have my image featured in the Sydney Morning Herald this week! The image is created from photographs taken soon after the great bushfires early in 2020 on the NSW South coast.

‘Black heart’ refers to darkness inherent in our ideas of land and belonging, darkness at the heart of our political system, and the charcoal in vistas of devastated landscapes. The mandala-style images invite a meditative experience of place, revealing heart-aching beauty in the bushfire devastation (NSW South Coast 2020).

exhibitions

The blazing world

August 27, 2020August 27, 2020
by Belinda

The Bowness Prize at Monash Gallery of Art is a pre-eminent award for contemporary Australian photography. It’s a hard one to crack, but this year I am chuffed to have been selected as a finalist with my triptych ‘The blazing world’, a series of works based on the tragic burned landscapes of the NSW South Coast in early 2020. Check out all the finalists, there is some fabulous work there!

In ‘The blazing world’ series, photographs of fire damaged bush on the NSW South Coast are overlaid with images of campfire, and of vintage ethnographic book pages describing Aboriginal relationship to land. This work completed in early 2020 draws on the catastrophic bushfire season in Australia as a metaphor for the increasingly dystopian modern global world. Sadly, the dystopia now seems exponentially worse, with the greatest global pandemic of a century spreading like wildfire, in the face of political posturing and a parallel epidemic of fake news.

eco print

Landscape and memory (Bundeena)

July 27, 2020August 27, 2020
by Belinda

Fabriano art paper dyed with local leaves, photo transfers, silk thread. 190 x 75 cm.

This work, inspired by ideas of land and belonging, combines ‘eco-prints’ using local native vegetation with images of myself, my husband and our young family from our first arrival in bush-bound Bundeena three decades ago.

I have recently been exploring ‘eco-printing’*, using the leaves of (mostly native) Australian plants to imprint and dye pieces of fabric and paper. Using vintage pieces of damask and linen sourced in thrift stores, the contrast struck me between the woven and embroidered designs of exotic flowers representing our colonial past, and the spiky and distinctive Australian plants. See my growing Eco-print gallery

The images that I most love are reminiscent of a decaying forest floor, and adding iron from rusty nails into the mix introduces an orange/black/grey palette that is spookily reminiscent of bushfire colours. I love that this evokes notions of a layered landscape, with buried memories, something I have been exploring for many years in my photographic art.

*’eco-printing’ first explored, named and disseminated by textile artist India Flint. (Flint, I. (2008). Eco colour: Botanical dyes for beautiful textiles. Murdoch Books, Sydney)

fabric art

a very silky summer

November 8, 2019November 8, 2019
by Belinda

‘Gunyah: black ripple’ and ‘Mimosa Rocks: Blue ripple

Summer finally feels like it is here, the spring weather is still lurching from hot to cold, but there’s enough hot for swims, and enough long afternoons for walks, mangoes are here and it’s feeling good.

This of course means that christmas is just around the corner, so in case you are looking for a special something for a special person – there are still some of my gorgeous silky rockpools available for sale.

Pure silk crepe de chine 110cm sq, limited edition. You can check out some of the range at Hazelhurst Gallery shop ($220 retail). Or contact me for a special studio price, and 10% discount if you purchase more than one.

Check out all the designs here

fabric art

Rockpools – wearable art

April 7, 2018
by Belinda

I just adore textile design and fabric art, and for a decade I have been planning a project to print my mandala designs. In the meantime, digital printing technology has greatly developed and become more affordable – so voila! Here is my first foray – a set of silk crepe de chine squares based on photographs of rockpools, from Bundeena in the Royal National Park, and the Mimosa Rocks National Park on the south coast. The work has been facilitated by Leisa Wake at Think Positive Prints, and the results are gorgeous, if I say so myself. I’m still in the process of organising branding / packaging / marketing for these pieces, so watch this space …

2017 palimpsest

Divine intervention?

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018
by Belinda

Well really, I shouldn’t be so flippant, because most people know that I’m a declared atheist (though with an interest in exploring a spiritual/metaphysical dimension of life). But hallelujah and praise the lord, my work is to appear in the Blake Prize for religious art this year. It’s a very well established prize and hard to be selected – I know because I have tried many times and only once previously succeeded, 12 years ago!

How could I resist entering with my Sacred/Profane series, from the Palimpsest exhibition, which layers sacred and mundane imagery to represent the accretions of ‘culture’.

The exhibition runs from 12 May – 1 July at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

japan

Turning Japanese …

September 22, 2017February 18, 2018
by Belinda

Since our previous trip in 2015 was cut short, we have been planning to get back to the crazy/sane, beautiful/ugly, elegant/kitschy, techno/rustic conundrum that is Japan. So we finally got back there this winter (hot summer over there) and loved it all over again.

Read more “Turning Japanese …” →

2017 art

In with the in crowd

April 26, 2017February 18, 2018
by Belinda

Producing visual art is a satisfying and addictive activity, but sharing it with the world and trying to cut through all the visual noise out there is an exercise in frustration. This inevitably cultivates festering self-doubt – ‘why would people want to see this stuff?’, ‘why should I add to all the visual rubbish in the world?’ and ‘isn’t this just an insanely narcissistic exercise?’. But those times when your work is judged to be included in competitive exhibitions feel like some kind of vindication.

Read more “In with the in crowd” →

2016 art

the blink of an eye

March 10, 2017February 18, 2018
by Belinda

Proposing, designing, producing and hanging an art exhibition is a fraught and lengthy process. It always seems so crazy that the eventual show seems to be over in the blink of an eye. Two weeks is not long to present work that has been over three years in development. But of course it is part of a lifelong process of producing creative work and, occasionally, showing it to others in the brief opportunities that are available.

On this day …

January 26, 2017February 18, 2018
by Belinda

It’s Australia Day, or Invasion Day, depending on your perspective. My photographic series, ‘Plenty’, is currently showing at Hazelhurst Gallery in Gymea as part of the ‘Palimpsest’ exhibition.