artworks
This section contains selected artworks from the 1930s to the year 2000.
Viewed as a whole, the art of Elizabeth Durack falls loosely into two parallel streams; the descriptive and the graphic; the imaginative and the visionary.
The former can be considered the harvest of the eye and the latter the mill of the imagination — or more simply, as works from out of sight and from out of mind.
Lines of demarcation between the two blur in places but the streams remain roughly parallel. At times Durack would be working on both simultaneously. From the mid 1950s, for example, while producing and exhibiting hundreds of out of sight drawings for Look at the state we’re in! she was creating works (rarely for exhibition) that stemmed from her reading and insights about astronomy, evolution, geology, history and philosophy; about prehistoric art; about the interplay of shadows and clouds, winds and waves and the concept of movement. Interest in these subjects and the practice of working on contrasting levels persisted through all decades. In the early 1990s as her 80th year approached, large out of sight works — Dreaming up the Victoria — emerged alongside arcane out of mind morphological paintings — the latter being a block of work that bridged her Rim ... and Eddie Burrup series.
In addition to individual pictures, Elizabeth Durack produced some thirty series of works. Each series tended to follow a theme while the number of works, per series, ranged from four up to a hundred and more.
Over the years Elizabeth Durack used a wide range of media: charcoal, graphite, conte pencil, watercolour, ink, felt tip, ochre, wool, collage, chalk, pastel, oil pastel, enamel, acrylic and oil; and brushes of all kinds and quality. All were employed at different stages onto paper, pressed wood, masonite, calico, canvas or linen. Media frequently were mixed and, in turn, materials varied considerably in size and quality.
Catalogue records exist of the works in all 65 solo exhibitions and most of the 50 or so group exhibitions in which Elizabeth Durack participated. Good records also exist of works that were never exhibited. It is however unlikely that a complete record of everything this prolific artist produced will be known.