Kaye Donachie. Silent As Glass

About

the slides she shows
of other women
who have painted other faces
the stories their stories
she tells as if it were
her story her own work
the sense of their
work in the biography
that she tells

this image she has
of them
her passion in
the telling is the way
you know she is
an artist
she in her own
way forming the passion
of others with
her own

From More than pure form, Rena Rosenwasser, 1971

Kaye Donachie’s paintings distil and redeem historical images of specific female protagonists, often imbued with a sense of place. In Silent as Glass the collated writings and images of poets such as Katherine Mansfield and Iris Tree provide inspiration. The narratives within the paintings are given structure by an almost visceral sensation of light that outlines and gives intensity to their surfaces, evoking a poetic image. Still life, landscape and portraiture are presented together in this exhibition. These new images echo one another and attempt to compress stories, voices and emotional labour into a reconfigured form.