Deanne Haddow

As a TAFE lecturer of visual arts for the past 14 years my teaching areas have been painting and art theory.

Recently I have also been lecturing in textiles and so practice in all three of these disciplines are now encompassed within my current art practice work. My most recent landscape and seascape paintings are investigations of colour, light and movement using watercolour, gouache and resist techniques on paper. I begin each work on site – or en plein air and complete the supplementary layers in the studio. I will always be producing these kinds of works and often paint many small studies when I am travelling and I undertake larger works when working around my home here in the South West.

I have returned to portraiture painting recently with a view to investigating true historical stories from an Australian woman’s viewpoint. Truth can be stranger than fiction they say, and I am often engaged by factual events and in real people and places that have a mythological or histrionic flavour in familiar settings which ring factually true and often remain relevant today as women still fight for equal rights. New technologies allow me to investigate the stories behind the stories within our brief Australian history and I combine the use of layering and collage with papers and articles, photographic images, found fabrics, wallpaper, collage and fine oil painting to fulfil an unfolding narrative. Textiles is an area that I have worked in on and off for 35 years. Pattern in fabric as a historical symbol is often used as a fundamental ingredient in my portrait and collage work along with lace and women’s clothing often forming the foundations of paintings and remaining visible within the layers of paint.

I am also constantly undergoing an exploration of textile colourisation and printing techniques such as tie dye, shibori and indigo dyeing using t-shirts, readymade garments and tote bags as a canvas along with my newest textile skill area- silk screen printing. My art practice is a continuous cycle of influences as I alternate between the areas of painting, textiles and creating visual narratives using collage. My teaching practice and contact with my students, my investigations into Australian history, the beautiful Margaret River environment and my network of artists and artist communities all contribute toward the daily making and thinking and doing that define me as an artist.