Irene Briant - A Survey
Irene Briant b.1934 in Hobart.
I’ve been intrigued by Dr Irene Briant’s work since 1991, when attending Perspecta as a third-year sculpture student, her work stood out to me as an utterly grounded and coherent observation of and connection to place, and there was something else, intangible.
Irene visited the Casula Powerhouse in the mid-90s where I was administrator; dropping in to check out the newly opened Arts Centre and when we chatted, she was surprised that I knew her work. Correspondingly, when I met with her in 2017 to pitch this exhibition as Creative Producer at Salamanca Arts Centre, I was surprised that she not only remembered me, she still had my old business card. So I’ve had a love affair with her work for years, the forms and patterns she makes and by that sense of deep connectedness.
This exhibition is a survey of Irene’s work across roughly four decades, from 1982 to now. Over that time, while the spotlight has occasionally fallen her way, she’s kept to her own creative path, neither deferring to that bright apparatus, nor seeking it - unsurprising to anyone who knows her. I am deeply grateful to Irene for allowing me to curate this survey and share my love of her art, and for opening up to me about her work and her life.
When we began to select works for the exhibition, it was those that Irene had retained that provoked my interest although she’s been collected by major institutions and those works are important in a national context. She is both prolific and private, and I felt that a closer understanding of her work would be better gained through these very much loved pieces.
Irene Briant - A Survey exhibition was at the Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart
12 January to 3 February 2019.
This project was supported by Arts Tasmania and the Gordon Darling Foundation.
