May 9, 2013
South Burnett artist Lee Porter will be showing her art in northern Italy in a few months from now if all goes well.
She’s been invited to exhibit her art at Gallery360 in Florence in July and August.
Her latest series of artworks is called “Can You See What I See?” and has been two years in the making.
It will be making the trip with her, and it focuses on the eyes and the intense look of animals.
For Italian audiences, the predominately Australian focus of the subjects will provide a rare view of local flora and fauna.
Lee is a great lover of animals and has a taste for anthropomorphic art, ie the joining of a human and an animal in one body form.
The sphinx is one of the oldest known examples “but even Angels have bird wings”, Lee said.
But for her own artworks, Lee took a slightly different angle by creating a human look for emotions that can be radiated from the eyes.
“We often put a human emotion to a dog’s face when it looks up with big sad eyes, and you can often see fear or interest in a horse’s eyes,” she said.
“So I wanted to try to create images that could stop and ask the viewer “can you see what I see?”
Lee has found it difficult to get funding or sponsorship for the trip after the Australia Day floods.
“Understandably, regional businesses have been giving all their financial support to help our farmers recover from the floods,” she said.
“But I’d love to see a change in support offered for the arts in Australia generally.
“As a friend pointed out to me, my achievement is probably equivalent to a tennis player reaching the Grand Slam finals.”
Lee says the challenge to exhibit overseas is twofold: on the one hand, an artist has to produce work of an international standard and have a reputable gallery recognise when they’ve achieved that; and on the other, the artist then has to overcome the second obstacle of shipping the works overseas.
“I’ve achieved the first challenge and will work with gusto to fulfil the second challenge with like-minded people such as Jason and Sue Kinsella of Moffatdale Ridge Winery, who are really great supporters of the arts,” she said.
When asked about exhibiting in a country that’s renowned for housing some of the greatest sculptures and paintings in the world, Lee said she was “terrified about the reception and acceptance of my style and theme, but I have to trust in the gallery curator’s belief in my work”.
“It’s very exciting and a real thrill to be a rural girl from the South Burnett going to Italy to show them what we have here in paint,” she said.
Lee’s exhibition will start on July 20 and end on August 8.
With limited time ahead, Lee is also trying to organise a viewing of her work at the Wondai Regional Art Gallery for a weekend to allow the public to come in, have a chat and take a look “to see if they can see what she sees”.
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