NONA BURDEN | KAREN GENOFF | BARBARA HANRAHAN - Paintings | Works on paper | Assemblages | Prints - Friday 11 August - Saturday 2 September 2023

The Light

Memento Mori   Art as Tribute and Memory

My professional arts practice began in the late 1970s. For close on nearly 20 years I was a member of one of Adelaide’s longest running artist collectives The South Australian Workshop and a member of the Women’s Art Movement. Since these heady, dynamic days there have been over 20 solo exhibitions where I have continued to use a broad range of materials and found objects to create bodies of work that tell my story as both artist and mother.

As both mother and an artist your heart is divided between that supreme act of creation and also the devotion to creative practice. It is hard to conceive of the idea that one’s body can actually grow eyes, fingers, toes, lungs and beating heart. As mothers we truly ‘own the means of production’.

I shared this life in parallel with a few women artists in my life. It is almost always the mothers that keep their child’s first lock of hair, first pair of shoes or an object that traces an obscure but intimate memory. I am dedicating this exhibition to the late Annie Newmarch and all the women who are mothers and artists still striving for equity and recognition.

Wall Brooches   The personal is political.

From the Heart   Wall mounted assemblages as portals.

Curious Cloches   Free standing objects.