People Power Needed to secure 130 Davey Street for the State Collection
The Foundation of the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery has launched an appeal to buy 130 Davey Street, a major artwork by Raquel Ormella.
A portrait of The Wilderness Society’s national operations base in Hobart, 130 Davey Street straddles the boundaries of historic artefact and contemporary art, and is an important record of this significant Tasmanian organisation.
Ormella’s meticulous drawings of the Wilderness Society offices blend details of the relentless lists, plans, records, maps, old campaign posters and interiors of this significant building which has formed the hub for Tasmanian environmental activism for decades.
Rendered in permanent marker on whiteboards, the artwork powerfully evokes the organisation’s energy and processes, and also metaphorically references the potential erasure of wilderness areas, the primary driver of Wilderness Society actions.
Embedded within Ormella’s artwork are depictions of iconic Tasmanian images, including Peter Dombrovskis’ Rock Island Bend (1979), that have become synonymous with the conservation movement in Tasmania and are linked to successful Wilderness Society campaigns to save areas such as the Franklin River.
The Foundation of the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery needs public support to secure this artwork for the State Collection.
How you can support this Foundation appeal
- Consider making a tax-deductible donation online, safely and securely here: www.givenow.com.au/supporttasmanianartaquisition
- Visit, like and share the appeal Facebook page with your friends, family and networks www.facebook.com/TMAGfoundation
More about the artist
130 Davey Street reflects Ormella’s experience working both as an artist and activist with The Wilderness Society in Tasmania over two years. The artwork won the New Social Commentaries prize at Warrnambool Regional Art Gallery in 2005, and subsequently travelled to the USA in 2008 for inclusion in the exhibition International Geographic, Artist's Space, New York. Part of 130 Davey St was included in Erased: Contemporary Australian Drawing, an exhibition organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales which toured to Asian venues in 2009/10.
Raquel Ormella is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. Through her unique art practice she investigates the intersections of art and activism, questioning the role of the artist in political movements by exploring those relations through personal experience. Ormella joins a long line of artists including John Glover, W.C. Piguenit and Peter Dombrovskis for whom Tasmania’s natural environment has been a source of artistic inspiration. Through her contemporary approach, Ormella reflects on the tradition of the picturesque within Tasmanian art amid the contested politics of its landscape.
Ormella’s work has been widely exhibited internationally, including in the 2010 Aichi Triennale (Japan), 2008 Sydney Biennale, 2003 Biennale of Istanbul and the 2002 Sao Paulo Biennale. A major survey exhibition, She Went That Way, was held at Artspace, Sydney in 2009, and her work was also included in Making it new: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art the same year. Other significant group exhibitions include Optimism, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008); Australian, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney (2008); Cycle paths will abound in utopia, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2004); and Bittersweet, Art Gallery of NSW (2002).
Raquel Ormella was born in Sydney in 1969. She studied at the University of Western Sydney, completing a Masters of Fine Arts in 2005. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Visual Arts at the Australian National University.
Ormella’s work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Monash University Museum of Art, the University of Wollongong, Casula Powerhouse, Warnambool Regional Art Gallery, the Cruthers Collection (Perth), the Buxton Collection (Melbourne) and other private collections within Australia and overseas.
She is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane, and Uplands Gallery, Melbourne.
