Art News

For the Love of It

A joint exhibition of works on paper by Zerin Dellal and handmade paper by Leah J Stewart, entitled Modern Love, is currently on show at Armistead's Gallery in Lismore.

Zerin trained as a print maker at RMIT in Melbourne, but it wasn't until leaving art school that she began combining drawing and painting together on her favourite medium - paper. After moving to the north coast two years ago she included mono prints in the mix and found the combination irresistible.

After all, Zerin's most passionate love affair has always been with art.

"This exhibition is about love in this day and age and how it has been over analysed and dissected," Zerin said. "We've started categorising love so you have all these different types like romantic love and unconditional love - you can't just have this lovely thing called love. I think it has something to do with passion and often people fear passion but how does love and passion connect? I have a love of art and a love of expression and art to me is all about emotion - it's not a head thing it's about what comes out of your heart. I get to my studio and lose all track of time and space - it's been a 20 year relationship and it's one love that can't be destroyed by anyone else."

Leah, whose lived in Lismore for the last 10 years, began making handmade paper in 1999 at Southern Cross University's paper making studios (one of the only studios of its kind in Australia).

A print maker and painter since 1985, Leah first began making her own paper to use as a canvas for her prints, but soon discovered they were an art form all of their own.

"I really liked the result of using banana, Hemp and recycled cotton to make paper," Leah said. "The quality of the paper was better than what you could buy off the shelf from Italy and England. I like the control you have over the process when making paper, but it's also quite chaotic because you never know quite how it will turn out."

The two works Leah has in the exhibition are from a show called Drift she held at SCU in 2001, which she chose after Zerin asked her to include something on the theme of 'modern love'.

"Modern love is all very romantic but my works are more about what happens when the romance fades and you have to salvage yourself and keep your own life going," Leah said. "All those dreams of wedding dresses and white picket fences don't necessarily apply in these later generations."

Modern Love is on show until next Wednesday, March 3. That evening a new exhibition of unique photographic images by Jon Liddell, entitled Fantasm, will be opened.

It will be on display until March 17.