Member: hazeldooney
Located: Sydney, AU
Age: ±46

About Me:
Hazel Dooney is one of Australia's most successful young female artists. Best known for her large, graphic, highly structured, and accessible imagery produced mainly in enamel on canvas (and, later, on board), her early work was inspired by a desire to confront the increasing commodification of art with stereotypical depictions of women derived from advertising and entertainment. It was a kind of glossy ‘anti-art’ – colourful, imposing, and yet devoid of emotional engagement. It underscored art’s somewhat uncomfortable relationship with today’s hyper-mediated consumer society.

Her new work is very different. It embraces the primal impulses of art, and reconciles a commitment to the figurative with a freer, more expressionistic exploration of line and colour. Created with watercolour, pencil and ink on cold-pressed paper, it contains chimerical layers of symbolism drawn from African and Carribean voodoo, punctuated by diaristic texts, poems and primitive incantations. As in nearly all her paintings over the past decade, versions of Hazel herself are the central figures. However, in these new works, the self-depiction is forensic, critical and even a little spooky. "One part magical realism, one part punk rock," is how one writer has described them. It's probably a good way to describe Hazel herself.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
2004 'Self vs Self', John Buckley Fine Art, Melbourne
2001 'Slightly Indecent', Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane
2001 Too Much Never Enough', Greenhill Galleries, Perth
1999 'Recent Works', Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane
1998 'Ultra Violet One', Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane
1997 'Hazed', Agent 029 Gallery, Brisbane

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005 'INTIMACY (human people)', London
2005 'Micro Masters / Action Heroes', Blindside Artist Run Space, Victoria
2005 'Style Sessions', Milk Gallery, New York City
2005 'The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
2004 'National Works on Paper 2004', Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria
2003'Pop Portraits: Hazel Dooney and Luke Mallie', Artspace Mackay, Queensland
2003 to 2005 'William Creek and Beyond', Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Touring Exhibition
Nov 2003 - Feb 2004 Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria
Apr - May 2004 Shepparton Art Gallery, Victoria
June - July 2004 Tamworth City Gallery, NSW
Sept - Oct 2004 New England Regional Art Museum, NSW
Dec 2004 - Jan 2005 Noosa Regional Art Gallery, Qld
Jan - Feb 2005 Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Qld
Mar - May 2005 Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum, Qld
May - July 2005 The Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
July - Aug 2005 Cowra Art Gallery, NSW
2000 'Ten Australian Artists', Nicola Townsend, Tokyo

COLLECTIONS

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Private collections in Australia, Japan and the USA
Wesley Hospital, Brisbane

Nice URL's:
Hazel Dooney