Contemporary Art Society of Victoria
Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2024
20 to 24 March 2024
Review by Cressida Fox
At this year’s CAS at the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, we displayed 78 works by 21 CAS Members - paintings, drawings and mixed media works.
View of the four walls allocated to CAS at MIF&GS
Many were in keeping with the Garden Show’s theme of plants and flowers. For instance, Anna Generalova’s mixed media paintings of blossoms; Karen Foley’s pencil drawing of colourful foliage, “In the Tropical Rainforest”; “Flowering Gum”, an acrylic by Susan Gustafson; Jenny Scholes’ flower studies in acrylics; Kylie Castan’s delicate blooms in soft watercolours; Analiese Fort’s watercolour studies of fruit and flowers; Carol Rowlands’ oil paintings of Spring and Summer flowers; Filomena Roberts’ acrylic, “10 leaved curly weed”.
Left top: Flowering Gum, acrylic by Susan Gustafson. Left bottom: Flower study, acrylic on canvas by Jenny Scholes
Spring, oil painting on canvas by Carol Rowlands, and Happiness 2, alcohol ink by Violetta Misiorek
Gail Stiffe used handmade paper, print & embossing on canvas for “Beachcomber”, which drew much public attention, as did the hand coloured etching and aquatint works by Hyunju Kim and Damon Kowarsky. Also very popular was Anna Mandoki’s mixed media “Floribunda”, a female nude back embellished with flowers.
Left top: Beachcomber, handmade paper with print and embossing on canvas by Gail Stiffe.
Left bottom: Tulips, acrylic by Susan Gustafson, and Floribunda, mixed media on fabriano paper by Anna Mandoki
Many people commented on “Buttonlicious”, an acrylic on woodboard by Violetta Misiorek. The flowers in the vase were made of individually hand painted and detailed wooden buttons. Denise Keele-Bedford’s series of linear watercolour drawings portrayed the Australia Felix lushness of the Outback and Murray Darling. These tall, narrow double framed works intrigued visitors. One of the gallery sitters reported that a man had said they should all be hung horizontally, as he could see landscapes in the linear forms.
Dressed for Dinner 3, linocut on archival paper by Karen Foley, and Australian Felix: Outback III, watercolour on paper by Denise Keele-Bedford
Other popular works included Karen Foley’s magpie linocuts, “Dressed for Dinner 1” and “Dressed for Dinner 3”. Thalia Andrews’ acrylic, “Autumn sunset”, was greatly admired, and Robert Lee’s mixed media triptych, “Life - Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, brought some speculation as to how he achieved the clever effects and patterns.
Left top: Moire I, mixed media by Robert Lee. Left bottom: Autumn sunset , acrylic by Thalia Andrews
As well as the above works, I liked Sveta Chay’s acrylic “The Secret Desires”, a mysterious giant pear floating in a blue-green landscape, and “Shell and Seaweed Membrane”, Joy Elizabeth Lea’s monoprint, acrylic, ink and watercolour.
2nd from top: The Secret Desires, acrylic on stretched canvas by Sveta Chay
Top: Pink and White, watercolour by Kylie Castan
About 14 arts organisations and several individual artists had displays in the exhibitions area on the first floor of the Exhibition Building. A great many visitors came through over the four days MIFGS was on, and sales were good. It was great to be exhibiting in MIFGS again, for the exposure of CAS and our Members, and for the enjoyment of the public. And happy public are likely to come to future shows.
