REORGANISING

PRINCIPLES
May

27

JunE

This exhibition catalogue documents

Reorganising Principles, an exhibition by Beau
Allen held at The Hold Artspace.
The exhibition opened on 27 May 2015 and
continued until 6 June 2015.

Front cover
Beau Allen, Glaring (detail), 2015

Over page
Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015

Next page
Beau Allen, Flipped (detail), 2015

Luke Kidd & Kylie Spear

www.theholdartspace.com
info@theholdartspace.com
Level 2, 274 Montague Road
West End Q 4101

Left & Right: Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015

Over page: Beau Allen, Big Things, (1-4), 2015

REORGANISING
PRINCIPLES
Beau Allen
This exhibition reconsiders the visibility of colonial settler women within
historical narratives. Referencing colonial images and objects of jewellery,
this experimental work will extend on existing knowledge of the era. By using
the genre of jewellery to navigate the archives, connections can be created
between diverse artifactual evidence concerned with the presence of women
in Australian historical narratives. This process aims to visualize idiosyncrasies
of the experiences of women through the use of new object forms and
photographic mosaics.

Viewing Art History

This work has resulted from an inquiry into selection of significant archival
collections in Australia. This project seeks to survey collected objects, in order
to expand my extremely limited knowledge of the significance of colonial women
within Australian history. This project forms the basis for my doctoral thesis.
The research trajectory has emerged after reviewing on display collections in
the colonial wings of the Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery,
Queensland State Library, National Gallery of Victoria, State Library of Victoria,
National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, Australia Museum, and the
Art Gallery South Australia, throughout late 2014 to early 2015.
Each gallery has a dedicated colonial wing which displays artefacts made or
collected from around 1788. My initial intent was to document objects and
images of jewellery subtly present within these collections. I observed an
abundance of jewellery rendered in paint. In the colonial era it was common
to execute paintings to be a representation. The figures depicted are posed in
idealised gestures that have been copied from British fashions with items also
rendered to support a specific attitude that the sitter wanted publicly express.
Jewellery in the paintings adorns both female and male subjects whose likeness
was draped or punctuated with gold, gems, medals, and ornamental clothing
fixtures.
Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015

Beau Allen, Glaring, 2015

Visualising colonial-settler women

When I visited the colonial wings I had a repeated recollection of research I had
compiled regarding the dress and behaviour of the elite in colonial Australia. In
late 1800s Peter Hinks wrote on the Victorian woman who had become a kind of
shop window for her husband as a way for him to publicly display his wealth and
success. Social custom expected men to be dressed in sober garments. This
created a problem with determining which man had the higher status. Men were
said to need to obtain a bosom to hang jewellery upon1. This socio- cultural
narrative suggests it was customary at this time in British culture to value a woman
for her ornamental function. I also recalled a statement that migrant women in
Australia and other colonial outposts such as India were interested in little else
besides their children and the latest style of dress. Margret Maynard suggests
this situation may be the result of the roles in these patriarchal societies were
so restricted that it was mainly through clothing and etiquette that women had
a chance to have social or political influence2. This research led me to conclude
that a 19th century womens purpose was to be symbol of male power, and that
British female migrants were happy to confine their activities and agency to be a
subordinate or supplementary force in the colonies socio-cultural environments.
Material Thinking
I began to wonder about the experiential dynamic whereby a visual stimulus aided
my recollection of a small selection of published knowledge. The little knowledge
I had as to the significance of colonial settler women affectively supplemented my
interpretation of the object I viewed. I supposed that my mental picturing of the
presence of Australian colonial settler women was further influenced by the display
methods adopted by the Galleries I visited. Though some objects had simple
statements of significance available via the online collection catalogue, (that I read
at a later date and that radically altered my understanding of the subject,) the
relevance or specificitys of the objects displayed in-situ, I argue, were intentionally
ambiguous in almost every gallery. The lack of contemporary dialogue may have
changed how I read the work.
The display appeared to me to narrate a story of great men who made claimed
this nation. I supposed that the objects gathered reflect two key plots of the
official story of settled Australia; one set of objects spoke of socio-economic
progress and represented great mens taste and influence, the second set talked
on socio-cultural progress describing national values through painted ideological
experiences of place. These narratives of national progress and cultural contrast
have been suggested by Shang-Hui Shin as a dominate dialogue to effectively
Above: Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015
Below: Beau Allen, Flipped, 2015

Top row: Beau Allen, A Womans Place, (1-4), 2015

Bottom row: Beau Allen, Doin Stuff, (1. Lumber Jills; 2. Day Out; 3. Ms Miller Waits For Vote; 4. Club Annual), 2015

inform peoples perceptions of a national history and identity3. Shin also suggests
that situational cues to some extent, [inform a] situational variability in [a persons]
identity construction. Furthermore Peoples historical perceptions could be
manipulated with an exposure to different historical narratives4. These factors
described above I see help to support the relevance of undertaking practice-led
research into how women are handled in contemporary displays of Australian
culture.
Visualising Principles
Through a process of studio reflection and experimentation I have developed the
works presented in the exhibition Reorganising Principles. The two works titled
Glaring and Painted Jewellery serves a as way to process data I have gathered.
This artwork is composed in two parts that substitute the other. Glaring is a
photomontage of the illustrated jewellery affixed to a female subject. Painted
Jewellery is a selection of illustrated jewellery that has been translated into tangible
jewellery objects. With Glaring and Painted Jewellery I sought to remove the works
from a normal viewing context to consider if by isolating the adorning jewellery
into a composite image the knowledge stimulated would differ. These rudimentary
works have aided development of key questions regarding the way are women are
visualised in colonial Australian cultural history.
I continued to search for other archived jewellery type artefacts. Flipped consists
of reclaimed floor boards with inset pewter casts. The casts are poor copies
of costume jewellery secreted under the floor boards of the Parramatta female
factory. Convict settler women were placed on arrival into the factories and
were punished for possessing personal adornments. Participants in a riot in the
Cascades Female Factory wore jewellery and silk scarves to assert their sense
of self and were called the Flash Mob5. Examples of ornamental jewellery in
gallery and museums only show examples of fine goldsmithing. Fine jewellery can
be assumed to reflect a wealthy owner. It is reported that one in seven Australian
women had a relative who resided in the Female Factories6. The Female Factory
women are connected to a significant portion of the current population, and
are notably absent from narratives evidenced by nationally significant archived
material. The cultural value of Female Factory women has be discussed by
historians Gay Hendriksen and Clare Wright who argue that these women show
the Australia character to not be intrinsically gendered6.
Also shown is a series of photographic collages titled Visible/Invisible. Thirtytwo photographs taken in Queensland in the 19th century are sourced from the
John Oxley Library, Queensland. These photographs were selected to aid the
identification and testing of potential critical positions though a practice led
research methodology. In all these photographic collages the images of females
Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015

Beau Allen, Lost/Found Stereoscope Photographic Collage, (1-3), 2015

has been silhouetted in Dutch gold leaf to highlight yet obliterate the subject. The
leaf has been used to convey characteristics of jewels. This method has been
overtly used in this series to link the jewel to be a metaphor for an imaginary
version of the colonial settler women. The entomology for jewel shows that while
the word has been used since the 12cen to mean an article of value used for
adornment, jewel has also meant beloved person, admired woman since the
14cen7. This coincidental link between jewel and women offers potential as a
strategy that seeks to reconsider a persistent perception that colonial women are
ornamental citizens.
There are five sets of photo collages that form the series Visible/Invisible. Big
Things awkwardly collages flat gold silhouettes of women over men who are
admiring a natural rock formation. The four images speak to the masculine
ownership of landscape. In A Womans Place is a set of four gold silhouettes of
women being subordinate in traditional institutional settings. A Womans Place
is displayed in dialogue with Doin Stuff, a further four images depicting women
performing activitys in unusual scenes that I assumed would never have being
recorded; to acknowledge their agency, their features have been traced into
raised gold silhouettes. Carte de Visite of Women in Queensland is six small gold
silhouettes of females looking uncomfortable in the landscape. Finally, Lost /
Found Stereoscope juxtapose images of women I see look lost in the landscape
with images of men looking content.
This body of is a small step toward developing a methodology visualise ways that
archival material has been coded. I speculate that the codes maintain a superficial
understanding of women in colonial-settler period and I seek to reconfigure these
collections to reflect a more complex picture of women of this era.
REFERENCES
1. Hinks, P 1975, Nineteenth Century Jewellery, Faber and Faber, London.
2. Maynard, M 1994, Fashioned From Penury: Dress As Cultural Practice In Colonial Australia,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
3. Shin, Shang-Hui. 2011. National Identity and National History: Role of Historical Narratives
on Identity Construction. PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne. Accessed 27 May 2015.
4. ibid.
5. Maynard, M 1994, Fashioned From Penury: Dress As Cultural Practice In Colonial Australia,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
6. Gay Hendriksen, 2009, Women transported: Myth and reality, National Archives of
Australia.
Wright, Clare. 2013. Women Are Central To Australias History. Why Have We Forgotten
Them? Guardian Australia Newspaper.
7. Online Entomological Dictionary, Jewel, Accessed 02 May 2015. http://www.etymonline.c
om/index.php?term=jewel&allowed_in_frame=0

Both images: Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery (detail), 2015

Left: Beau Allen, Reorganising Principles (installation view), 2015

Right: Beau Allen, Glaring (detail), 2015

LIST OF WORKS
Beau Allen, Glaring, (Maurice FELTON, A woman of NSW, c.1840; Henry MUNDY, Elizabeth, Mrs William

Field, c.1842, paintings; Frederick STRANGE, Misses Isabella and Fanny, daughters of the Reverend William Browne;
Benjamin DUTERRAU, Mr Robinsons first interview with Timmy, 1840, paintings, oil on canvas; Richard NOBLE, Mrs John Thomas,
1858, paintings; Robert DOWLING , Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly) [Dolly Robertson], 1885-86; Tom ROBERTS, Miss Minna
Simpson, 1886; Tom ROBERTS, 1888, An Australian native [Portrait of a lady];Julian ASHTON, c1889, Spring (Miss Helen Willis)

Granite rocks dwarfing the landscape Stanthorpe c.a 1910

Party of archers ca. 1870

Beau Allen, A Womans Place (1-4), 2015, photographic collage, Dutch gold leaf, 297 x
210mm

[Portrait of Helen Ashton, Mrs James Ashton]; Benjanim Duterrau, c1832, Lady Eliza Arthur;Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, c1845,

Maryborough Outbreak Primary Pneumonic Plague May-June 1905

Martha Sarah Butler; John Linnell, 1825, Eliza Darling; Thomas Philips, 1829, Ellen Stirling; E. Phillips FOX, 1893, Mrs James Pirani;

Women and children standing outside a home at Howard Queensland ca. 1900

Augustus Earle, 1826, Mrs John Piper. Artworks on Display National Gallery of Australia. Robert Dowling, 1882, Miss Annie Ware;

Office at Fountains Camp outside Toowoomba ca. 1870

Rupert Bunny, 1908, Chattering; Tom Roberts, 1888, Mrs L.A. Abrahams; E.Phillips Fox, 1893- 94, Portrait of My Cousin; Tom

Two women outside the Judd residence at Yuleba ca. 1900

Roberts, 1888, Louise, Daughter of the Horn; John Longstaff, 1895, Ada Garrick (Mrs Bright); George W.Lambert, 1906, Lotty
and Lady. Artworks on Display National Gallery of Victoria. David Jones, 1853, Jane Mander Jones; Henry Mundy, 1841, Mary Ann
Lawrence; Henry Mundy, c1841, Mary Ann Lawrence as a Widow; Unknown, 1857, Marianne Egan and her children Gertrude

Beau Allen, Doin Stuff; Lumber Jills; Day Out; Ms Miller Waits For Vote; Club Annual, 2015,
photographic collage, Dutch gold leaf, 594 x 420mm.

Evans Cahuac and Henry William Cahuac; Robert Dowling, c1854, Mary Ware; Unknown, c1873, Elizabeth Walford; Richard

Timber worker sisters from the Lynch family pictured with Jim Hunter on his paint pony ca. 1900

Read junior, 1830, Miss Elizabeth Roberts; Unknown, c1841, Fanny Jane Marlay; Maurice Felton, 1840, Miss Frances Samuel;

Castle Rocks site of Chillagoe Caves Queensland ca. 1895

George Baird Shaw, 1878, Annie Roberts; Unknown, 1853, Jane Mander Jones; Claude-Marie Dubufe, 1833, Portrait of Lady

Lucy and Dora Corbett out for a drive Cooktown ca. 1900

Eyre Williams (Jessie Gibbon); Thomas Phillips, c1828, Lady Ellen Stirling; Evelyn Chapman, 1911 Self Portrait; Florence Ada Fuller,

Unidentified woman on a camel ca. 1880

1908, Portrait of Deborah Vernon Hackett; Maurice Felton, 1841, Mary Tindale; Edwin Dalton, c1864, Portrait of Mrs Sarah Fairfax;

Men and boys gather outside the Fortitude Valley polling booth Brisbane Queensland 1899

Howard, Barron, c1930, Florence Austral; Richard von Marientreu, 1951, Dora Byrne; Jerrold, Nathan, 1929, Jessie Street; John

Portrait of Mrs. Emma Miller suffragette movement in Queensland

Richard Tindale, 1841, Mary Tindale; Maurice Felton, 1840, Miss Frances Samuel; Unknown, c1840, Elizabeth Fairfax; Emanuel

Group of people posing on some rocks in Mount Perry ca. 1900

Solman, c1844, Cecilia Soloman. Artworks on Displ, ay National Portrait Gallery.Tom Roberts, 1899, A study of Jephthahs

Members of the Cairns Rifle Club Queensland ca. 1900

daughter; Joseph Backler, 1861, Portrait of a women (Elisabeth Collings); Maurice Felton, 1840, Portrait of Mrs Alexander Spark;
Marshall Claxton, 1851, The Dickson Family; Clewin Harcourt, 1911, One Summer Afternoon; Hugh Ramsey, 1902, The Lady
in Blue, (Mr and Mrs J S MacDonald) ; Violet Teague, 1909, Dian Dreams ( Una Falkiner); Rupert Bunney, c1908, A Summer
Morning; George Lambert, 1905, The Three Kimonos. Artworks on Display Art Gallery New South Wales),

paper, Dutch gold leaf, 3000 x 1600mm

2015, pickawall

Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery, 2015, ink, metal, polyester resin, multiple works
Beau Allen, Flipped, 2015, floorboards, pewter, variable
Beau Allen, 2015, Visible/Invisible series, Images sourced from and held by John Oxley
Library, State Library of Queensland.
Beau Allen, Big Things, (1-4), 2015, photographic collage, Dutch gold leaf, 594 x 420mm
Balancing rock in the large group of rocks called the Tower of London
Family group on the lawn at a residence in Townsville ca. 1890
Boy standing next to the Rocking Stone at Cape Moreton Moreton Island Queensland 1908

Beau Allen, Carte de Visite of Women in Queensland Landscape,(1-6), 2015, photograph,

Dutch gold leaf, 148 x 105mm
Barrow family at School Falls near Buderim 18901900
Daintree River near Mossman Queensland ca. 1885
Pandanus palm at a beach Tweed Heads 1905
Punting on the Macintyre River Goondiwindi ca. 1880
Family taking shade from an outcrop of rocks in the Cunnamulla landscape ca. 1890
Women and children heading towards buildings at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum Queensland ca. 1900

Beau Allen, Lost / Found Stereoscope Photographic collage (1-3), 2015, photographic
collage
Pandanus tree ca. 1870

Quart Pot Creek surrounded by granite rocks Stanthorpe ca. 1891

Witton Bridge Indooroopilly ca. 1890
Landscape five miles from Calcifer in the Chillagoe district
Rock pool at Noosa Heads Queensland ca. 1906
Falls outside Woodford on the Stanley River Queensland

Unidentifed studio portrait of a well dressed woman Brisbane ca. 1900

Feature of Mt. Zamia called The Knob Springsure district ca. 1877
Crowd outside the Town Hall Croydon ca. 1900

Beau Allen, Flipped, 2015, floorboards, pewter

Beau Allen, Painted Jewellery, 2015

Beau Allen, Carte de Visite of Women in Queensland Landscape, (1-6), 2015