Work Of The Week - Textanudes 54 Arlene Textaqueen (1975- )

The Age

Saturday August 21, 2004

VICTORIA GURVICH

ART REVIEW: Textanudes 54 Arlene Textaqueen (1975- ) Originals produced in 2002,tapestries (I had to pretend I was apunk band to get the gig - shownhere) in 2003 and 2004

Arlene Textaqueen's Textanudes 54, which are small Texta drawings, were put together like a set of playing cards.

Three of the portraits (the other two are You can find tranquillity for two dollars and They always forgave me because they were so benevolent) have been interpreted by weavers into tapestries for the Victorian Tapestry Workshop's exhibition collection. The weavers, Rachel Hine, Hilary Green and Caroline Tully, created the tapestries in 2003 and this year. They are much larger than the originals, which are the size of playing cards.

The VTW's outgoing director, Sue Walker, says the surface texture of the tapestries is grainy and the tapestries come alive in a different way to the originals. She says the pieces are decorative, which is in the tradition of tapestry, and they represent young art.

Walker saw Textaqueen's work in an exhibition and found it exciting and quirky, graphic imagery "with lovely pattern quality, which I thought would be wonderful to explore in tapestry".

"Also, I think it's a really good thing to introduce young, lively, emerging artists to a medium (tapestry) that is very frequently the domain of more senior, established artists." The weavers were also young and, Walker says, Textaqueen was delighted with the tapestries.

Walker says many visitors to the VTW find these tapestries not to be what they expected. Some love them, she says, while others find them confronting.

-- Victoria Gurvich

The Victorian Tapestry Workshop is at 262 Park Street, South Melbourne. It is open 9am-5pm weekdays. Costs apply. Tours available by appointment. Works are for sale and the Textanudes tapestries cost $14,300 each.