Three Dances, Three Decades: From New York to Melbourne
When I look back at my work, I’m reminded not just of the finished image, but of the place, the people, and the experiences that shaped it. In last year’s Dance in Motion exhibition, three pieces stood out as markers from different chapters in my practice - Waiting, 2010, Last Stand, 2010, and Obsidian, 2023.
Waiting
Monotype with ink on Velin Arches paper, 38 × 28.5 cm
Petra van Noort, Tiffany Mills Company, rehearsing Tiffany Mills’ LandFall.
The reference for this piece came from my time in New York in 2007, sketching and photographing Tiffany Mills Company rehearsing at the Joyce SoHo. There was an intimacy to the rehearsal space - close enough to see the flowing layers of her skirt and the musculation in her back. Working from references later in my studio, I wanted the image to hold stillness and anticipation in her stance, along with movement and light in her skirt. I had seen in that moment.
Last Stand
Oil on linen, 120 × 60 cm
Giorgia Bovo, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, rehearsing Rebecca Kelly’s The Travelers.
Three years later, I was back in SoHo, this time at Rebecca Kelly Ballet’s studio. Giorgia Bovo was rehearsing The Travelers, and I was again sketching and taking photographs to capture details for later, this time in oils. The format - tall and narrow – emphasises the attitude of the dancer and her defiant and sassy stance, a posture that seemed to contain the entire arc of the rehearsal in a single frame.
Obsidian
Charcoal and pastel over monotype, 2023
Callum Linnane, The Australian Ballet, rehearsing Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear.
Fast forward to Melbourne, 2023. I was in The Australian Ballet studios, sketching Callum Linnane during Wayne McGregor’s rehearsals of Obsidian Tear. The performance itself is physically intense and emotionally charged. This oil painting was about contrasts: light and shadow, strength and vulnerability, the physical form and the emotional undercurrent.
Former Artistic Director David McAllister, AC, once said about my work:
“When you hear stories of the Ballets Russes and the Ballet Opera, where they used to have artists that would come and sketch and paint the dancers, it felt like we were sort of connecting to that time. … there’s something incredibly special about having an artist recreate a moment of another artist, and I think it’s what’s so beautiful in her work. There’s a real sense of not just capturing the moment but augmenting and making it even more.”
Looking at these three works, along with the others in ‘Dance in Motion’, reminds me of why I continue to draw dancers – their ability to convey such depth of emotion in a single moment is unsurpassed.
