March 9, 2015
The Kingaroy Art Gallery has a problem … they have a gallery full of artworks and they don’t know who they belong to.
The Gallery ran across the problem last month when volunteers cleaned out the old bank vault in the 1913 Council Chambers as part of a month-long renovation program.
The vault had been used as a general purpose storeroom ever since the Gallery moved to the 1913 Chambers in Haly Street more than a decade ago.
Curator Fiona Kemp said when staff cleaned out the vault they found “almost a gallery” full of old artworks inside it.
They included paintings and drawings that had been left at the Gallery over the years by various artists, along with artworks whose ownership was completely unknown.
Over the last few weeks the Gallery has been contacting the artists they could track down to come and collect their works.
The remainder – those where the artist is unknown or untraceable – are on display in the Rear Gallery this month in the hope that someone, somewhere will come and claim them.
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This month’s major exhibition – which fills the Main Gallery and primary corridors – features paper tole craftworks created by the South Burnett’s acknowledged paper tole expert Rosemarie Matthews-Frederick, along with works by nine of her students.
This is Rosemarie’s third annual exhibition at the Kingaroy Art Gallery, and fans will be delighted with the many new works on display.
Paper tole – also known as decoupage – involves carefully cutting, pasting, varnishing and manipulating copies of an image one sheet at a time to create finished 3D pictures.
Decoupage is thought to have originated in East Siberian tomb art, when nomadic tribes used cut out felts to decorate the tombs of the dead.
From Siberia the practice came to China, and by the 12th century cut out paper was being used to decorate lanterns, windows, boxes and other objects.
In the 17th century Italy was at the forefront of trade with the Far East, and it is generally thought that this is how the craft made its way to Europe.
From there, the hobby has spread around the world and these days specialist suppliers produce and sell paper tole kits that followers can assembled into finished pieces.
Some of the more advanced practitioners also make their own works from scratch, taking advantage of modern photocopiers to reproduce images, then carefully slicing out the layers they need to assemble finished pieces.
There are many painstaking techniques used to achieve truly life-life effects, and Rosemarie teaches these to her students.
At Saturday’s opening, Rosemarie told guests she will be attending a world paper tole conference in the USA in the middle of this year.
There was a wide difference between Australian and American paper tole craftwork, she said, and in her opinion Australian paper tole work was superior.
However, she hopes to pick up some new tips during her trip which she can share with students on her return.
- “Tole’d by Paper” and “Unclaimed and Unknown Art” will both remain on display the Kingaroy Art Gallery until March 28. The Gallery is open 9:00am to 4:30pm on weekdays and 10:00am to 4:00pm on weekends, and admission is free.
I am also one of Rosemarie’s students – I come all the way from Mitchell (the other side of Roma). I feel that the expert tuition I get is worth it, and if anyone wants to give it a go, do it! Rosemarie is the best and I can’t thank her enough.