'Locals on Board': Wollongong Art Gallery October 2018 - February 2019

Diana Wood Conroy

Title: Whorl with fragment of tapestry

Tempera with Australian ochres and gouache on board with woven tapestry of wool silk and linen 60 x 80 cm

$650

Artist Statement

 Drawing, tapestry and archaeology have always been packed together for me. I learnt tapestry weaving while employed as an archaeological Illustrator at the British Museum in London. Since 1996 I’ve been involved in examining fresco painting in the excavation of an ancient theatre in Paphos, Cyprus, over annual seasons with the University of Sydney. I begin to perceive my home location in the Illawarra through the lens of the classical European past. This position was a response to Aboriginal friends who urged me to ‘look at your own dreaming, know your own country and ancestry’.  I weave through love of the intricate, thoughtful process of relating threads and patterns. The tapestry fragment placed above the painted whorl gives concrete evidence of time passing, attempting to make time and space cohere in the ‘flesh’ of the woven fabric. The patterned whorl is derived from a mosaic floor in a ruined basilica in Cyprus, painted with Australian earth colours.