Before the Fall 1991
Oil on canvas
Winner - Blake Art Prize 1991

Rosemary Valadon creates a dynamic space for female presence and self-identity that is powerfully generative and productive.

- Rod Pattenden

Rosemary Valadon
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Rosemary Valadon is an award winning Australian artist (the Blake Religious Art Prize, Portia Geach Portrait Prize, Muswellbrook Art Prize, amongst others). She is a regular finalist in the Archibald, Sulman, Blake, Portia Geach and Mosman prizes. Her career spans 35 years, and survey Shows of her work were held at the Macquarie University Gallery and the Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree, in 2006 and 2007. In 2010 Rosemary was part of the hugely popular “Slow Burn- A century of Australian women artists from a private collection” exhibited at The National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery.

Valadon is represented in major Australian collections including BHP Billiton, National Portrait Gallery, Uniting Church, Macquarie University Gallery, Bathurst and Muswellbrook Regional Galleries, Art Bank, and private collections in Australia and overseas.

Her interest in the ‘feminine’ and depictions of women throughout the ages has been a major focus of her work. From the award winning Before the Fall ( Blake Religious Art Prize 1991, to the depiction of Australian women as archetypal figures in the Goddess series, painting notable people such as Germaine Greer, Ruth Cracknell, Blanche d’Alpuget, Noni Hazlehurst. Mythology changed to psychology in the next series of works based on psychological/feminist studies, in particular Freudian interpretations of the ‘feminine’. Works such as Girl on a Swing, and All in the Mind (contained in the Finding the Feminine section of this website). In the early 2000’s her attention turned to another code of mythology – Fairytales - and paintings based on the Cinderella theme, and the Wolf theme (Three Little Pigs, and Red Riding Hood), started to appear. From the mid 2000’s her work has been centered around the experience of living in Hill End where she moved in 2005 and built a studio –- the landscape, performances at the local Royal Hall, local figures (contained in Hill End Stories), and Still Life’s capturing the richness of this experience.

In 2009 Valadon became the first artist-in-residence at the Justice and Police Museum in Sydney, where she researched the history and depictions of women and crime, in particular the place of the ‘femme fatale’ in pulp fiction and society. A new body of work is being developed from this residency and will be exhibited at the Museum from October 2012 to April 2013.