An Archaeology of Woven Tapestry Wollongong Art Gallery

Image: Diana Wood Conroy, Whorl with a fragment of tapestry, 2018, Tempera with Australian ochres and gouache on board with woven tapestry of wool silk and linen. Detail. 60 x 80cm.

Wollongong Art Gallery invites you to the launch of Diana Wood Conroy An Archaeology of Woven Tapestry Saturday 8 June at 1.30 for 2pm To be officially opened by Emeritus Professor Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Guest speakers Emeritus Professor Kay Lawrence AM, South Australia. Dr Craig Barker, Director Paphos Theatre Excavation Project Cyprus Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney. Performance A quartet of male voices from Eklektika Vocal Ensemble will sing an arrangement by Paul Sharrad of Carole King’s song Tapestry. Refreshments provided. All welcome. Exhibition continues until 1 September 2024.

An Archaeology of Woven Tapestry brings together woven tapestries, drawings and paintings drawn from public and private collections from fifty years of Diana Wood Conroy’s life as an artist. Travelling widely in Europe, she is now deeply embedded in the country of the Illawarra.

Combining a passion for the earth, threads and colours of the Australian land in grids of pattern, her loving study of ancient archaeology in Cyprus and Greece informs her imagery.
The past is a dark mirror to the present, foretelling our society’s fragmentation, but the tactile and imaginative process of weaving offers clues for survival.

Reviews and Articles

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-17/lost-tapestries-of-artist-diana-wood-conroy/104079426

Diana Wood Conroy: A life woven through time - The Illawarra Flame

https://youtu.be/QPqraqgDpYM?si=g47QnRiWOcDAQqt3 

https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/exhibition-review-diana-wood-conroy-an-archaeology-of-woven-tapestry-wollongong-art-gallery-2743793/

Cross Art Project Kings Cross: How it all began. Exhibition

How It All Began: Tiwi Textiles and Prints draws on Diana Wood Conroy’s archives including Tiwi textiles from 1974, diaries, tapestries and watercolour painting, and from the joint book Tiwi Textiles, co-authored with Bede Tungutalum (launched December 2022). The artists use cloth and paper to tell tales of encounter, of Country, of creative cultural survival and economic adventure, of uneven government initiatives and of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists seeking new spaces in the art-world. This exhibition makes manifest historical interactions across cultures, feeding pathways to voice, treaty and truth.

Click on the above image or HERE to see the exhibition images on the Cross Art Projects website

Tiwi Textiles Design Making Process with Bede Tungutalum

Tapestry Commission 1973

'Glory' Tapestry commission for Macquarie University, wool and cotton, 3m x 3m, 1973.

Diana working on tapestry Glory, 1973