ROSEMARY VALADON
Sydney, Australia | Born 1947
Rosemary Valadon is an award-winning Australian painter whose richly expressive figurative works explore femininity, mythology, desire and the complex ways in which women have been represented throughout history. Born in Sydney in 1947, Valadon began her formal art training in Melbourne in the 1960s, studying drawing and painting in the tonal tradition associated with Max Meldrum. She later studied at Sydney College of the Arts, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts and postgraduate studies.
Valadon developed a distinctive style characterised by strong colour, expressive brushwork and a sense of theatricality. Her paintings frequently draw upon mythology, fairy tales, spirituality and psychological ideas, while the female figure has remained central to her practice. Her work combines sensuality and beauty with a questioning of traditional ideas surrounding femininity and the portrayal of women. The National Portrait Gallery describes her large-scale oil paintings as being characterised by theatricality and opulence, informed by both irony and feminism.
An important period in Valadon's career was her Goddess Series, produced between 1990 and 1996. In these works she portrayed prominent Australian women as mythological and archetypal figures, with subjects including Germaine Greer, Ruth Cracknell, Blanche d'Alpuget and Noni Hazlehurst. The series brought together many of the themes that have remained important throughout her career — mythology, the female body, identity and the changing representation of women.
Valadon achieved significant recognition in 1991 when she won both the Blake Prize for Religious Art and the Portia Geach Memorial Award for portraiture. Throughout her career she has also been a regular finalist in major Australian art prizes including the Archibald, Sulman, Blake, Portia Geach and Mosman prizes, and has received the Muswellbrook Art Prize among other awards.
Her career has included major survey exhibitions at Macquarie University Gallery, Manning Regional Art Gallery and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, with a further survey presentation at Maitland Regional Art Gallery. Her work is represented in numerous public and corporate collections including the National Portrait Gallery, Macquarie University Gallery, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre and Artbank, as well as private collections in Australia and overseas.
The works by Rosemary Valadon offered through Plum Gallery provide an intimate view of one of the central themes of her career — the female figure. Painted with loose, confident brushwork and a vivid, sometimes unexpected palette, these works possess the sensuality, theatricality and psychological presence that have become characteristic of Valadon's figurative painting. Together they offer collectors an opportunity to acquire original works by an established Australian artist whose exploration of women, identity and the human figure has remained at the heart of her practice for decades.
