Kitty Owens is a Melbourne artist, writer and museum curator. She writes and makes art about history and museology, and sometimes adds to this blog.
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Last year I spent eight weeks in a cell at Old Melbourne
Gaol, in a series of intermittent ‘escapes’ to my temporary writing studio. In
that time I completed a couple of writing projects.
The residency at Old Melbourne Gaol wasn’t particularly
spooky, the room was more like a strange office, with a stream of tourists
passing by.
Fragments of
conversation slipped under the door:
“Where’s the gun. The gun is here somewhere”
“Schappelle”
“There’s somebody in there”
“Let me take a selfie”
“What if somebody was looking back at you when you looked in
through the keyhole?”, “I was literally about to say that “
I took quite a few photographs as well, some of which pick up on a previous project called ‘Shine’ depicting the reflections in museum display glass.
I will shortly be taking up a cell at Old Melbourne Gaol for two months, which is offered by the National Trust (Victoria) in collaboration with the Victorian Writers Centre. I have been doing quite a bit of writing in recent years, came runner up in a couple of writing competitions last year (Nillimbik Ekphrasis poetry competition and Moreland Short Story Competition). The subject matter and sensibility of my writing is the same as my art practice: a playful take on history. In my temporary cell I will be working on my poetry manuscript All That Remains (working title) and a novella set in an historic house museum.
A project that I worked on has been listed on Monuments
Australia! The Commemorative Park Mosaic Mural was an installation in Noble Park, on the wall of the RSL, commemorating the impact
of war on refugee and migrant communities. I worked on the project in the late 1990s, just
after I finished art school, before doing Honours. I led an oral history project and the design and
construction of a mosaic mural, with young refugee and migrants from the Noble
Park and Springvale communities. Details from the mosaic mural have been relocated and restored by mosaic
artist Libby McKinnon, who taught me mosaics and contributed to the design of
the mural.
2000 Post Graduate Diploma, Museum Studies, Deakin University
1997 BA (Fine Art) Honours, First Class, RMIT
Solo Exhibitions
2014 Party in the Lilac Room, installation Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens
2013 The Little Ones, installation Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens
2012 Fever: Artists books 1993-2012, the Niches, City Library Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012 Artists in Residence Showcase, Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens
2011 Potato Revolution, Williamsburg Art and Historical Centre, Brooklyn, NY
2010 The Womens’ Salon; Place and Identity, The Counihan Gallery, Brunswick
2009 Moreland Sculpture Show, Coburg
2008 The Humble Spud, Marrickville City Council & At theVanishing Point Gallery, Sydney
2008 Current Sculpture Challenge, Current Sculpture Biennial, Wangaratta
2007 In My Backyard, Red Earth Gallery, Mooroolbark
2007 Moreland Sculpture Show, Coburg
2006 Moreland Sculpture Show, Coburg
2005 Current, North Eastern Victoria Sculpture Event, Wangaratta
1998-2002 Hi/Lo Exotico, Stop 22 Gallery, St. Kilda This exhibition then toured to Colombia, and then to Canberra Contemporary Art Space in 2002
1998 Miniatures, Roar Studios, Fitzroy
1997 Private Archives, Personal Encyclopaedias and Secret Collections, The Linden, St Kilda
1997 RMIT Graduating and Honours Printmaking Exhibition, 101 Collins Street Annexe
1994 Box, Book and Glove, RMIT Union Arts Exhibition Space, Melbourne
1994 Freemantle Print Award, artists’ book section, Freemantle Arts Centre, Freemantle
1992 The Deans Drawing Show RMIT
Commissions
2012 Requiem charcoal drawing and installation, for the exhibition Coming Home, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, about the site's history as a military rehabilitation hospital for sufferers of 'shell shock'.
2005 Autumn in the Grape Arbour Site specific participatory ceramic project with pre-schoolers, Coburg Children’s Centre
1998 The Book of Smoke, for the City of Moonee Valley, Up in Smoke installation exhibition, site specific to the Walter Burley Griffen Incinerator in Essendon
Prizes
2009 Acquisitive prize, Moreland Sculpture Show (with Mary Zbierski West)
Ghost Chinese Market Garden
2007 Ephemeral prize, Moreland Sculpture Show (with Mary Zbierski West) Turn, Turn, Turn
Publications
Coming Home exhibition provides moving insight into Bundoora Homestead's war history
Just installed this artwork in the window of Pictures and Pages bookshop, Sydney Road, Coburg, Victoria, Australia, as their 'Anzac Window'. The leaves are from an Avenue of Honour at Coburg Lake, which was planted by local families after WW1. each tree (there are 164) was planted as a memorial for a family member from Coburg or Brunswick who was killed in the Great War.
The installation is called: 'Falling and we could not catch them.'
Stringing the leaves ready to hang, my front garden on a sunny April morning
My installation Requiem was featured on the ABC 7.30 report last night, footage to violin's playing, about Coming Home exhibition at Bundoora Homestead:
