Deborah Beck: Fragments

Deborah Beck’s recent paintings, in her exhibition Fragments, are of closely cropped sections of suspended cloth and curtains.

Although Beck acknowledges the inherent historical context of these works, the cropping creates an intimate close-up that removes the cloth from its original context. With sourced images ranging from 19th century curtains to screen-printed material from the 1950s and 60s, the paintings evoke memories of a time when fabric was used as a way to decorate and enhance interiors of private houses. Alongside these more personal drapes, other remnants of cloth are drawn from the rich furnishing fabrics of historic houses in NSW, paying tribute to the skilled designers and unknown artisans who originally made them. These intimate depictions of fabric fragments in watercolours and oils, although painted on a two dimensional surface, have an almost tactile illusion of depth.

Deborah Beck is an artist, historian and author. She has held 18 solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne and participated in numerous group exhibitions throughout Australia. Beck has been a finalist in many significant awards, including the Dobell Prize for drawing (2012), the Sulman Prize (2000), the Portia Geach Memorial Award (2012) and the Blake Prize (2003).

She studied at the National Art School in the 1970s and received a Master of Arts (history) at the University of Sydney in 2010. Beck has taught in art schools in Sydney for over thirty years and is currently Collections Manager, Archivist and Historian at the National Art School. She has co-curated six major exhibitions in the NAS Gallery, including the site wide exhibition Captivate in 2022, celebrating two centuries of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School. She also wrote the accompanying publication Captivate which received a highly commended award at the National Trust Heritage Awards in 2023. Her other books include Hope in Hell, Rayner Hoff: the life of a sculptor and Set in Stone, which won a NSW Premier’s History Award in 2012. Deborah Beck was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for Service to the Arts in January 2023, and is currently the Ross Steele AM Fellow at the State Library of NSW.