Ola Robertson Artworks: The Wasting Body

Ola Robertson The Wasting Body, 2022: 25x20x5cm Polyester thread 

Artist: Ola Robertson Artworks: The Wasting Body

Poet: George Gordon McCrae Title: Life’s a Cigar

Passages and Portals - Networks Australia exhibition

 

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Tree-Sisters, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Christine Appleby, The Evidence is Everywhere, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Karyn Fearnside, The Stamp of Rubber Magpie and New Roman Times, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Susan Hey, Pathways, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Foreground: Ola Robertson, The Wasting Body; Background: Valerie Kirk, Namadji – Rocks, Photographer Fiona Bowring 

Sandra Obst, Rhythms, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Passages and Portals - Part two

September 9

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October 19 2022

Networks Australia is a group of practising visual artists, living and working in Australia. We work in all mediums including textiles, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing.

Our exhibition titled ‘Passages and Portals’ consists of artworks inspired by Australian poetry. Poems are often passages and portals, offering new ways of seeing our natural surroundings and life experiences. In this exhibition, each artist has interpreted an Australian poem visually.

The Networks artists have invited a group of local Grenfell poets to include their own poetry in the exhibition, addressing the themes of Passages and Portals. These poems will be displayed among the artworks in the gallery.

Grenfell Art Gallery

Ola Robertson - Work in Progress

Ola Robertson 2019 
Vines - using recycled materials-old charger and electrical cords plus packaging kraft paper. 

Ola Robertson 2019
Vines - using recycled materials-old charger and electrical cords plus packaging kraft paper.

Ola Robertson

I have just come back from a week at Fibres Ballarat, doing a free machine embroidery workshop with Meredith Woolnough. We also had instruction on placing small embroidery pieces in resin.  The class had a really good atmosphere and every one enjoyed it, especially me. Here is my final piece which we had two days to complete and mount.

Ola Robertson

Ola Robertson, Capillary network 2

Ola Robertson, Capillary network 2

Ola Robertson, Capillary network 2

Ola Robertson, Capillary network 1

Ola Robertson, Capillary network 1

Ola Robertson, Tissue skin 2

Belconnen Arts Centre

Nets Exhibition Geelong 2012 - Artists Work

Avril Douglas

Stella Adams-Schofield

Maggi Toner-Edgar

Fiona Lynn

Valerie Kirk

Barbara Dawson

Ola Robertson

Nancy Tingey

Nancy Tingey

Gabriella Hegyes

Gabriella Hegyes

Ola Robertson

Ola Robertson migrated from Scotland with her husband and baby son in 1967. Having lived in different countries and also in many places in Australia due to her husbands work, she dabbled in sewing and different crafts over the years and did not seriously get involved in textiles until recently. It was when Ola was at the Art School at the Australian National University in Canberra, that she found she absolutely enjoyed fabric printing, discharging and dyeing. Digital printing and other new technologies are also of great interest. Ola graduated in 2000 with a Diploma in Printmaking and in 2006 with honours degree in Textiles. She has exhibited in selected group exhibitions in Australia, France, and New Zealand.

‘Fragile Skin 1’ 2010
Medium: Pig gut, and printing pigment
Size: Height: 155cm x Width: 35cm

 Photographer Leise Knowles

Photographer Ola Robertson

Artist statement about the work:
This work came about due to a couple of recent health problems. I wanted to show how the ageing body fared health wise on it’s journey through life. For this I have used as my medium pig gut or sausage skin – this medium has a fragile translucency but also has incredible hidden strength and because of this I was able to metaphorically show that although the human body grows older and everything can become more fragile, infect inwardly the strength for living is stronger than imagined. The material used has the look of vulnerability and fragility, but in fact it has great strength a fitting metaphor for this. The print on the gut is fragile bones on wrinkled skin (a network of lines), and references the way our skin can look as one ages, using the medium as an allegory of a life well lived.

 Photographer Leise Knowles

Background to the work:
Over the past years I have been basing my artwork on the concept of ageing. It has covered the perception of seniors in society and their invisibility. The benefits that can be provided by this older generation to the modern society are often lost due to the perceived notion that a person with grey hair, a wrinkled face and a fragile body are weak, worthless and useless .

Laying the gut

 Silk screen with repeat pattern for Fragile Skin 1

 Distressed gut

Detail of Fragile Skin 1

Photographer Ola Robertson