Anna Farago: THREADS
3 December 2022 - 19 February 2023
Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale
Threads sees artist Anna Farago return to the places of her childhood, including the site of her family farm in the Jeeralangs and other locations she has revisited over many years, in a quest for meaning and purpose, borne out in the deeply personal performative photographs, patchwork and embroidered artworks that comprise this exhibition.
The ‘threads’ here are the many and various strands of both her artworks and her being, all of which lead poignantly to home. But Farago’s is a home now complicated by loss and a shifting appreciation of custodianship; her conversations with Traditional Owners such as Aunty Doris Paton, enrich her traditional patchworks with layers of meaning that we, as viewers, are invited to peel back.
Farago’s art takes many forms, but it is the textile forms that have taken prominence, and which dominate Threads. While sharing a close connection with her ancestry (see Louisa Waters’ in-depth Feature Article), Farago’s artworks also represent a wrestling with art history—with Minimalism, Orphism, 1970s Feminist Art ideals and even Dadaism—to arrive at a singularly unique and personal form of expression. The cold, calculated language of modernism has given way to a flowering of colour and geometry that, while sophisticated in execution, betray the warmth of the artist’s love for home and family.
– Simon Gregg, Director, Gippsland Art Gallery