AustLit

Educated and trained in Brisbane and London, Anne Wallace ‘s figurative painting style found favor in the early 1990’s at the height of postmodernist angst. Her most notable canvases depict scenes of ambiguous meaning and atmosphere, which have been variously compared to Bathus, Magritte and Beckmann in their ability to create tension and layers of meaning.

The recipient of several prestigious scholarships and awards, including winning the Sulman Prize in 1999, Anne Wallace ‘s artistic career has spanned over two decades. Holding a Bachelor of Arts (QUT) and Master of Arts (Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London), Wallace primarily works in oils in a figurative style, and is often described as a contemporary realist. Despite working and living in Brisbane, Wallace first exhibited in Melbourne and Sydney, before a retrospective of her work was shown in Brisbane in 2000. A veteran of many solo and shared exhibitions, her work has been repeatedly linked to the world of cinema and film noir still shots, despite her insistence to the contrary. The unifying essence of her practice might better be expressed in terms of capturing mental snapshots of poignant moments of ambiguity. Wallace’s paintings catch the instant where dramatic action is suspended , leaving the viewer searching for resolution.This gives her work traction in being about nothing and something significant at the same time. Her work is held in national, state and regional collections. Wallace has not produced any new work since 2011.

People say of my work that ‘it looks portentous and sinister, but perhaps only something mundane is actually happening’, or vice-versa. In other words, perhaps it’s about the sinister underlying the mundane — the unheimlich, the uncanny — but then again, maybe it’s not. Anne Wallace

http://www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/content/fortitude_statement.asp?name=AnneWallace_FullStatement

Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney

http://darrenknightgallery.com/artists/wallace

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Queensland Art Gallery, Australia

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

Brisbane City Art Gallery, Australia

Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia

Macquarie Bank Collection, Sydney, Australia

2011 The Shades, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2009 Release the Bats, Queensland Art Gallery – Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

2005
 Song Cycle, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2002
 High Anxiety, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, Brisbane
(with Michael Harrison), Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
The Go-Betweens Paintings, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2000
 Private Rooms, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
A story that can’t be told, University of South Australia 
Art Museum: City West Campus, Adelaide, Australia

2011 Nobody knows – Simon Mee, Rob McHaffie, Anne Wallace, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Queensland

2006 Parallel Lives: Australian Painting Today – TarraWarra Biennial 2006 TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville,

Victoria, Australia

2003-2004 Art Australia, touring Germany: Kunst Raum Sylt-Quelle, Gallerie Seippel, Köln, Stätische

Gallerie, Delmenhorst, Germany

2000 Fortitude – New Art from Queensland, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

1999-2000 Moral Hallucination: Channelling Hitchcock, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.

1998 In Absentia, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, Australia

Collaborations (with Eugene Carchesio), Bellas Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

1994 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships, University of South Australia ArtMuseum, Adelaide, Australia

Butler, R. Anne Wallace’s Confessions, Art and Australia, volume 32, number 3 1995

Conomos, J. Art and cinema as the perfect crime, Art Monthly Australia, Number 128 April 2000

Colless, E. Double Jeopardy, catalogue essay, Anne Wallace – Recent Paintings, 1999

Daw, R. In the absence of narrative, catalogue essay, Fortitude, Queensland Art Gallery, August

2000

Hall, K. Moments Away, in absentia exhibition catalogue, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National

University, Canberra, 1999

Ross, T. Staging the Gaze in the Art of Anne Wallace, catalogue essay, Anne Wallace – Recent Paintings, 1999

Spinks, J. Mirror Mirror; Cruelty and Innocence in Recent Paintings by Louise Hearman, Mary Scott and Anne Wallace, Art and Australia, vol.35, no.2 19

1999 Six month residency at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, awarded by the Power Institute of Fine

Arts, University of Sydney and the Australia Council

1999 Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/sulman

1995 Melville Nettleship Award, Slade School of Fine Art, London, England

1993 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships

http://w3.unisa.edu.au/samstag/scholars

1990 Hobday and Hingston Bursary, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

Oxlades Prize, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia