Rosemary Valadon

Rosemary Valadon is a multi-award winning Australian artist (the Blake Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Award, Muswellbrook Art Prize). She is a regular finalist in the Archibald, Sulman, Blake, Portia Geach and Mosman art prizes and, most recently, her work, ‘Table of Broken Things’, was Highly Commended in the Ravenswood Australian Woman’s Art Prize in 2020. Her career spans 40 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, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2016 and Maitland Regional Gallery in 2019. Her work featured in the acclaimed group exhibition ‘Interiors’ at Orange Regional Gallery in 2018.

Valadon’s work is represented in major Australian collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, Uniting Church, Macquarie University Gallery, BHP Billiton, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Bathurst and Muswellbrook Regional Galleries, Art Bank, and private collections in Australia and overseas.

The artist’s interest in the ‘feminine’ and depictions of women throughout history has been a major focus of her work. This has been explored through the theatrical worlds of ancient mythologies, psychological theories, politics of gender and identity, and through social roles.

Since the mid-2000s, Valadon’s work has centred on the experience of living in the historic village of Hill End, NSW. This has resulted in her latest works: still life paintings that celebrate the ritual of ‘taking tea’, and epic panoramas, such as The Four Seasons, which celebrate the produce she grows in her garden – fruits, flowers and vegetables – and local animals and birds. In the tradition of Grace Cossington Smith and Margaret Preston, Rosemary Valadon has reinterpreted a distinctly Australian femininity and domestic aesthetic. (photo credit: Michael Wee)

Watch Rosemary Valadon in conversation with Richard Morecroft