ARTISTS | Jane Guthleben
Jane Guthleben is a still-life painter, known for her paintings of native flora, birds and insects. By following the voyages of British and other early botanists and explorers, Guthleben’s painting practice places greater scrutiny on Australia’s historical and environmental past, seeking to bring attention to species which were collected, documented and are now, often, extinct.
Guthleben’s robust and painterly compositions take their compositional cues from the Dutch Golden Age, but with a palette that plays nostalgically on 1950s kitsch and a sun-drenched Australian landscape.
Jane Guthleben studied a Bachelor or Fine Arts with honours at the University of New South Wales in 2015. Guthleben has been a finalist in The Archibald Prize (2020), the Mosman Art Prize (2019,2012), the Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize (2018) among others.
Artworks:
Bird in Hand, 2022, solo exhibition at .M Contemporary
Guthleben goes back in time to create her large floral works, mining historical accounts of Australian flora and birds contemporaneous with the heyday of the Still Life painting boom in Europe.
For BIRD IN HAND, Guthleben researched the earliest accounts of flora and birds made immediately after British colonisation of Australia in 1788. These include paintings by anonymous convict artists, known collectively as “Sydney Bird Painter” or “Port Jackson Painter”, held in the State Library of New South Wales. She has also drawn from written accounts of flora and birds encountered in the first days of the colony. Using these as a starting point, she combines the species in large arrangements that loosely approximate traditional Dutch floral Still Lifes. In some compositions, endangered birds stand in the place of flowers, and in the background lie parched arid planes or windswept coastlines. In some cases the species she references are now extinct.
Installation images of FLORILEGIUM, 2021, solo exhibition at Edwina Corlette Gallery
Bush Arrangement with Staghorn 2021
Bush Arrangement with Staghorn 2021 is an immersive diptych of Australian bush flora. The long format of the painting hints at an impossibly lush Australian landscape and features quintessential flora from the Sydney basin. Without a horizon or other reference point for the viewer, the arrangement is neither a still life, nor a landscape painting, but rather a never-ending dreamscape of vegetation that is both familiar and alien, inviting yet impenetrable, and fragile yet eternal. It references Guthleben’s fascination with 17th Century Dutch Still Life painting, in which flora is composed into extravagant arrangements, and where, in vanitas tradition, the viewer is asked to contemplate their morailty – in this case, their impact on the environment.
Exhibitions:
GOLD CHIP | one-night-only exhibition
Gallerysmith closes the 2023 curtain on December 12 with the annual exhibition, GOLD CHIP. At this one-night-only event, the gallery presents…
XV: PAST PRESENT FUTURE
CV:
Jane Guthleben
Born Bairnsdale, Victoria, lives and works in Sydney
Education
2015 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honors, UNSW Art and Design
Solo Exhibitions
2022 BIRD IN HAND, M Contemporary, Sydney
2021 FLORILEGIUM, Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2021 AN EVENING AT MT WILSON, M Contemporary, Sydney
2020 BUSH CHORUS, M Contemporary, Sydney
2020 GRANDIFLORA, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2019 ORNAMENT, M Contemporary, Sydney
2019 POSY, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2018 FLORALIA, M Contemporary, Sydney
2017 FLORA DOMESTICA, M Contemporary, Sydney
2017 REMOTE, Incinerator Art Space, Sydney
2016 OBJECT & IMAGE, Incinerator Art Space, Sydney (with Peter Finlay)
2011 HOME, Charles Hewitt Gallery Sydney
2008 DELICATES, Sydney
2007 RECENT PAINTINGS, Sydney
2006 PAINTINGS, Sydney
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 XV: PAST PRESENT FUTURE, Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2020 Retracing, Art Space on the Concourse, Sydney
2020 Frontlines: Takayna to Adani, Hobart
2019 Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, represented by M Contemporary, Sydney
2019 Heroine, M Contemporary, Sydney
2018 Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, represented by M Contemporary, Sydney
2018 Platform 10, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2018 At the End of the World, M Contemporary, Sydney
2017 Multitasking, 107 Projects, Redfern, Sydney
2017 Three Painters Sharing a Studio, Ewart Gallery, Sydney
2016 Object & Image, Incinerator Art Space, Sydney
2016 Interior Motives, 107 Projects, Sydney
2016 Young Artists Initiative, M Contemporary, Sydney
2016 Internal Affairs, Art Month, Janet Clayton Gallery, Sydney
2015 Holiday, 107 Projects, Sydney
2013 Small is Beautiful, Charles Hewitt Sydney
2012 Views and Visions, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2011 Think Big, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2010 About Flowers, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2010 Something Personal 2, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
Selected Awards and Residencies
2022 BigCi Residency, Bilpin NSW
2021 Archibald Prize Salon des Refuses, Finalist
2021 Portia Geach Memorial Award, Finalist
2021 Hawkesbury Art Prize, Finalist
2020 Archibald Prize, Finalist
2020 Chateau d’Orquevaux Residency Prize, France, Finalist
2020 The Old School Residency, Mt Wilson
2020 Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize, Finalist
2020 Waverley Art Prize, Finalist
2019 KAAF Art Prize, Finalist
2019 NG Art Creative Residency Art Prize, Highly Commended
2019 Mosman Art Prize, Finalist
2019 Doug Moran Portrait Prize, Semi-finalist
2019 Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize, Finalist
2019 Archibald Prize Salon des Refuses, Finalist
2018 Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize, Finalist
2018 Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Finalist
2018 Little Things Art Prize, Finalist
2018 UNSW Greenhouse Residency, Fowlers Gap, NSW
2017 Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, Finalist
2016 Young Artist Initiative Contemporary Art Award, M Contemporary, Sydney, Finalist
2015 UNSW Greenhouse Residency
2015 UNSW Painting Prize, Artscene Derivan Award
2015 Fishers Ghost Art Prize Finalist
2014 UNSW Jenny Birt Award Highly Commended
2013 UNSW Fowlers Gap Scholarship
2012 Mosman Art Prize, Finalist
2011 National Trust NSW Harper’s Mansion art prize, finalist, Highly Commended
2010 ABC 702 Art Prize, Finalist
News:
NOW REPRESENTING JANE GUTHLEBEN
Gallerysmith is delighted to announce that we now represent Jane Guthleben. Jane Guthleben is an environmental devotee, and known in…
JANE GUTHLEBEN FINALIST IN PORTIA GEACH AWARD
Zali, As Flora, 2021, oil on linen, 178cmx122cm Jane Guthleben is a finalist, Portia Geach Memorial Award. Congratulations Jane!…