Margery Edwards (1933–1989) was an
Australian Abstract Expressionist artist working in mixed media."Born in Newcastle, NSW, in 1933,
Edwards was the daughter of a civil engineer. As a child, she was
fortunate to be allowed to accompany him on trips into the bush,
where he worked on water supply projects. Experiencing the beauty
and immensity of the landscape and observing the lives of the people
who worked it probably shaped Edwards’ strong affinity for the
bush, and helped to develop the spirituality that permeated her work
throughout her life.According to her niece, Geraldine
Griffin, the Edwards family moved to the north shore of Sydney, to
Lindfield. Here, she went to school and later trained as a nurse,
achieving BA (Hons) in nursing in 1956, at 23 years of age. However,
meeting her future husband, David Edwards, a research physician,
later changed the predicted course of her life.Between 1959 and 1960,
Edwards was resident in New York. The next year, in her late
twenties, Edwards returned to Sydney and started her art training.
Initially she took private tuition with Dora Jarret (1904-1983), a
French trained Australian painter, printmaker and teacher.
Desiderius Oban (1884-1986), a renowned Hungarian-born Australian
painter and printmaker, and one of the last post-impressionist style
painters in the art world, was also her teacher. Themes of a
philosophical and reflective nature along with explorations of
spirituality, were shared with her contemporary, Rodney Milgate
(1934) now a highly regarded poet, writer and playwright.
Significantly both Oban and Milgate were of a spiritual nature (and
winners of the Blake Prize for Religious Art), which may have played
an important influence in Edwards’ ongoing artistic and
spiritualistic expression.In 1969, Edwards studied in Milan at
the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, the purpose of which was “to
provide teaching in the arts to craftsmen and private artists subject
to public supervision and public opinion”. From Italy, Edwards
travelled to the Morley College of Art in London, arriving in 1970.
Morley College, not unlike the Bauhaus, offered a wide education in
all the arts and crafts, drama, dance and music and would have given
Edwards a well-rounded artistic grounding, as well as developing her
painting and printmaking skills.In the early 1970s, Edwards had
already started exhibiting her work. Two one-woman shows were held
at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, and another two in Milan. Her
earlier work, as seen in Mother and Child: 1971 and Eyes of a
Labyrinth: 1971 is both rhythmic and dynamic, while the simpler Two
Circles and a Line: 1971 and Geometric: 1970, are concerned with
volume, space and balance."(margeryedwards.com)In 1985, Edwards' black paint began to
merge into deep colors: ochres, earthy reds and deep blues. These
paintings, writes curator Jeanne Wilkinson, "portrayed darkness
as a universal constant; not empty but filled with some mysterious
presence; an origin, not a lack of light".
Painting is like silent poem, said Simonides, poet from ancient Greece.Paintings are icons, doors to the Platonian world above the heavens. Paintings on my blog are just those icons, which lead a viewer into the magic world of harmony and beauty. Artists who present their achievements on my blog have a very different cultural and national background, they represent variety of artistic traditions and schools
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