DIANNE BEEVERS


Following intensive studies of Chinese art and architecture at the National Art School, Newcastle in the 1960’s, I developed a particular interest in brush painting, ceramics, paper, and the art of the Chinese garden, as well as an interest in Chinese migration to Australia, and the Chinese contribution to furniture manufacture in Australia.
These interests have been sustained in my career as art educator (art history) in secondary schools, in art schools in Newcastle, New South Wales, and in Melbourne, at Box Hill Institute and RMIT University, and through my work with museums in Victoria – Children’s Museum, Museum of Victoria and Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West during 1980’s.
In 2000, as a student at the International Unit of Public Art, RMIT University, I made my first visit to China, participating in a City of Moreland Cultural Exchange to Xienyang, to produce a public art work, a pebble mosaic. The experience of this visit, which included time in Shanghai, generated immediate and continuing outcomes in my creative work and teaching, including a body of works on paper exhibited in “Global Cities” at the Public Office, Melbourne.
Following the cultural exchange to China, and now teaching at RMIT University, I initiated and curated a group exhibition of photographs and sculpture at PITspace Union Arts Gallery, RMIT University (2001). This group of artists is now preparing for “Re-Orientation”, an exhibition of works directly responding to the Xienyang visit, at the Counihan Gallery, Brunswick, (City of Moreland) in April, 2002.
Following the past three years of Furniture Design studies at Box Hill Institute, Doncaster Campus, I am currently producing new works of contemporary furniture referencing ancient jade pi discs and traditional Chinese painting cabinets. China provides an important connection in my current work, which encompasses furniture design, painting, mixed media and drawing. Paper as a medium for furniture is of particular interest to me.
I welcome an opportunity to revisit China to engage with China’s contemporary artists, designers and studio crafts people, both in traditional and contemporary fields.