Join members of the Women’s Art Register (WAR) at the Round Table to hear their stories of their own ‘unfinished business’ on the final day of the exhibition Unfinished Business: Perspectives on art and feminism. The panel will focus on the role of WAR historically, and its current position in relation to feminist art practice in Australia today and in the future, to reposition WAR as a critical force in contemporary politics and culture.
The panel is composed of members and volunteers to the Women’s Art Register, including Stephanie Leigh, Danielle McCarthy, Caroline Phillips, Rosemary Mangiamele, Juliette Peers and Katherine Edwards.
ABOUT THE WOMEN’S ART REGISTER
The Women’s Art Register is Australia’s living archive of women’s art practice (non-binary and Trans inclusive) and a National, Artist-Run and Not-for-Profit community and resource. Designated a ‘Collection of National Significance’ by the Heritage Collections Council in 2009, this unique archive houses the images, catalogues, posters and ephemera of over 5000 Australian and International artists. Since 1975 the Women’s Art Register has provided an inclusive, independent platform for research, education, advocacy and support for its members and the Arts and Education sectors, enhancing the status of women artists and addressing issues of equity, professional practice and cultural heritage.
SPEAKER BIOS
Stephanie Leigh is a Melbourne based artist and a volunteer with the women’s Art Register. Working with painting, sculpture and installation, Leigh’s work draws on feminist tropes of the historical and modernist canon such as the reclining pose, ideas about beauty, the naked fetish and cultural and political oppression. Stephanie has been recently awarded a Bundanon Trust Artist Residency, which she will undertake in 2018.
Danielle McCarthy is an interdisciplinary visual artist and a volunteer with the Women’s Art Register. Danielle has a special interest in the expanded fields of painting and drawing that includes large-scale installation and performance projects that seek to engage with life’s momentums and the elaboration of difference through repetitive gestures, interventions and actions. Her creative practice acknowledges its debt to feminism through an engagement with those forces that hold bodies together.
Caroline Phillips is Secretary of the Women’s Art Register, and an artist, independent curator and researcher. Caroline has recently been awarded a PhD on feminist, relational practice by the University of Melbourne/Victorian College of the Arts. Phillips also works as an independent curator and researcher on collaborative projects that highlight the strength of women’s art practice and challenge systemic inequities in political and cultural systems.
Rosemary Mangiamele is a committee member of the Women’s Art Register and an artist. Rosemary has worked in painting for over 25 years, exploring abstraction in over 50 exhibitions.
Juliette Peers is a member of the Women’s Art Register committee. An esteemed historian and lecturer, Juliette has published over thirty books and articles on women’s art practice and lectures at RMIT. She published many essays relating to contemporary art and feminist studies in Australia.
Katherine Edwards is a member of the Women’s Art Register committee, an artist and a gallerist. Katherine works in painting, and is an Art consultant for Libby Edwards gallery.
