Rita Hall: Museum Studies 1969-2009

Went to see a fabulous art exhibit this weekend at the South Australian Museum:

OK, so the show was largely comprised of images of dead birds, but I am inexplicably fascinated by such images, especially when the birds have got museum/taxonomist’s tags attached to them. (This does not make me a freak, honestly. In this case, you can blame my dad: he is also an artist who sculpts incredibly realistic birds out of wood — when I was growing up, the freezer in our basement was constantly filled with dead birds, which he used as models for his work. What do you make of that, Freud?) There were dozens of gorgeous watercolours, prints, and oil paintings — the early stuff showed Australian wildlife (some of it alive) but the recent works are the breathtaking ‘still lives’ of stuffed songbirds, pigeons, egrets, etc.

What’s more, Rita Hall used the South Australian Museum’s collections in her work; so, scattered around the room were a selection of curio cabinets with the very birds Hall had painted! Fascinating. If you are in the Adelaide area and fancy seeing a beautiful (not morbid) exhibition, drop by the ETSA Utilities Gallery at the SA Museum (North Terrace), 4-28 June. Admission is free, and all of the works are for sale — I’ve got my eye on a few of them, even if my wallet keeps hiding on me.

Click here for slightly more information.
Click here fto go to Rita’s website, which has a large selection of her works, her background and CV.