Drysdale and DiVerse

2012 marks the centenary of the birth of Russell Drysdale. To celebrate this iconic Australian artist, the S. H. Ervin Gallery has over 60 drawings in the exhibition Russell Drysdale: The Drawings, curated by Lou Klepac.

The sensitivity with which Russell Drysdale depicts his characters, his settings and landscapes, speaks to DiVerse as a visual poetic. As poets, our responses to his drawings are of an individual but empathetic nature, such is the power and eloquence of his images.

DiVerse at the S.H. Ervin Gallery. 25.3.2012

http://www.nationaltrust.com.au/placestovisit/sheg/exhibitions/russelldrysdale/

Between Real & Shadowed Worlds

The original artworks of Lawrence Daws have inspired five poets from DiVerse to respond to his creative painting.

The Promised Land of Lawrence Daws is a fertile landscape for DiVerse, rich with innuendo and iconic scenery. Conversant with the work of Carl Jung from the mid 60s, with Taoism, the I Ching and Tarot, Daws' interest in the collective unconscious led him to explore the "space between real and shadow worlds" in his art.

DiVerse performed their specially written poetry on Sunday the 7th of August, 2011.

45

2010 celebrates 45 years of the Portia Geach Memorial Award, a national visual arts award that salutes the talents and creativity of Australian female artists for achievement in portrait painting. The award was established by Florence Kate Geach in 1961 in memory of her sister, Portia Geach (1873-1959), an artist and an activist for women’s rights. Each year the prize is awarded to the“best portrait painted from life of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters or the Sciences.”


This is the second time DiVerse has responded to the artworks in the Portia Geach Memorial award.

Photo by Peter Hislop of DiVerse at the 2010 Portia Geach Awaard at the S.H. Ervin Gallery.

Salon des Refusés

The S. H. Ervin Gallery exhibition Salon des Refusés follows the tradition made famous by Napoleon III in Paris in 1863. The Emperor insisted that the huge number of works which had been rejected by the Academy for that year’s Salon be displayed for the public to view and judge. Selection for the S.H. Ervin Gallery, Salon des Refusés is considered to be prestigious in its own right. The very first Salon des Refusés included works by Manet and Pissarro.

The DiVerse poets have been invited to write ekphrastic responses to this eclectic selection of works. Ekphrasis is the transcription of visual art into poetry, a tradition dating perhaps from Homer’s description of images on Achilles’ shield. Ekphrasis may take many forms and goes beyond merely describing, annotating or substituting words for images.







DiVerse at the 2010 Salon des Refusés
Sunday the 23rd of May, for the 2010 SWF.

Material Images

DiVerse at the S.H. Evrin Gallery 14.2.2010

Material Images introduces poetry based on the art of Nicholas Harding in the S. H. Ervin Gallery’s exhibition Drawn to Paint. Every work of creative art is a considered representation of experience rendered into form through the artist’s chosen medium. These works, the paintings and poems, have a shared sense of presence in the impact of their subjects, compositions and their striking materiality. For the poetry, there is a sense of the immediacy of the poets’ creative responses to their viewing of Harding’s works, responses transcribed into form through language and voice.

Light Lines

DiVerse at the S.H. Erving gallery for the Nora Heysen exhibition, Light & Life - 13th of December 2009

The paintings and drawings of Nora Heysen have inspired artists and students for many years, especially her exceptional finely crafted drawings. DiVerse have taken a selection of Nora Heysen’s artworks and transcribed them into poetry.

Nora Heysen is regarded as one of Australia’s premier portrait and still-life artists. Born in 1911, Nora Heysen, one of eight children, grew up surrounded by family and art. Heysen learnt to paint in the studio of her father, landscape artist, Hans Heysen. Her early works influenced by her father and by the Dutch masters, were concerned with form and substance and the effect of light on objects and colour.

DiVerse at the Newcastle Art Gallery

DiVerse repeated their performance of their Margaret Olley poems for her exhibition, "Life's Journey" at the Newcastle Art Gallery on Sunday the 20th of September 2009.

In addition to the regular line up for DiVerse we had a special geust reader Jacqui Simmonds. Jacqui can be seen standing between Paulay McKay and Louise Wakeling, also there Sheryl Persson and Robert Kennedy.

Performing before a small audience the poems were warmy received.