Lemon Hill Gallery is keen to display its next exhibition, Call Me Grandi by Faye Colls, from Melbourne.
The gallery has usually had some real-life encounters with the artist or their work before inviting them to exhibit here, but this exhibition has come about via the internet.
For several months gallery owner Elizabeth Blakeman followed Faye’s charming, touching drawings of grandchildren on Instagram, and finally decided to bite the bullet and see them in real life.
She tentatively contacted Faye via her Instagram posts, unsure whether Faye Colls was an exhibiting artist or not.
Elizabeth discovered she was, among many things, a children’s book illustrator, author, poet, raconteur and fine artist, who graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts) with distinction and has exhibited at various university galleries in painting, sketching, narrative poetry, taxidermy and installation art, and has completed many private commissions.
Faye accepted the invitation and her work will be in Lemon Hill Gallery for four weeks.
She choose, for this exhibition, to illuminate the small fleeting moments in time that cement deep connection between a grandparent and grandchild, what it feels like to slow down and listen, really listen, to their wisdom.
The work is pencil on moleskin and often on pages that have been torn from her artist’s book and left uncut. They are sketches that speak of moments shared with ‘tenderlings’ that may fade or disappear over time.
She is known for her love of children and said she has an urgent need to help them develop resilience and self respect. She wrote that she can often be found “scampering through the bush looking for Gruffalos and Unicorns”.
The artist Faye of today was preceded by a Faye in many other dimensions. She owned two highly successful cafes in South Yarra and the CBD, was a fashion designer and manufacturer, a lyricist, ran a wholesale nursery and has had a long involvement in charities and fundraising.
The magic in her art is the result of a life lived intensely and lived well.
The exhibition opens on Sunday, October 8 at 2pm.
See public notice section for further details.
