The planners of this project appreciate it is not possible, for reasons of space, to include in a publication every one of the “wonderful women” who have contributed so much to the artistic life of Western Australia. For this reason we are compiling a supplementary list of artists to be included on the website – this list can be added to and brought up-to-date as relevant.  See the News Page for details of how to submit suggestions for this 'Wonderful Women' section.

NADIA SEARLES (b.1945) Fibre artist

  In 2009 a major art exhibtion was held of Nalda's works titled 'Nalda Searles:  Drifting in My Own Land'.  The title captures the essence of her engagement with the natural environment of Western Australia, which largely forms the material substance of her art, and the inner world of her mind, which transforms those subtances.  By combining the natural such as native grasses, seeds and leaves with manufactured objects or clothing, she creates works with a disarming effect.  These range from large sculptural pieces such as the surreal Kangaroo Couple (1995-2008) with their formal gowns over-stitched with Xanthorrhoea bracts, to wonderful expressive baskets created by the coiling, weaving and stitching together of grasses, sticks and textiles.

  Overlaying and penetrating Nalda's practice is her deep involvement with the indigenous women of the Eastern Goldfields and the Western Desert where much reciprocal sharing of knowledge about country and skills has taken place.  The women call her karpali, which means grandmother, because of her knowledge of tjanpi, or grass weaving.  Her particular friend and companion on her regular excursions into the bush is the renowned painter Pantijiti Mary Mclean.  Through their art, and Nalda's learning of Mary's Ngaanyatjarra language, the two women have helped to forge an important connection between our two cultures.

  Nalda was born in the gold-mining town Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Eastern Goldfields.  She trained to be a psychiatric nurse, then travelled overseas where she developed her interest in art.  On return to Western Austalia in 1979, she undertook a brief course in macrame at the Midland Technical School.  She then started making coiled baskets adding various 'found objects' into the making process, a concept that was just being explored in contemporary art practice.  An important influence on her development was her friendship with ceramicist Eileen Keys (1903-1992), who encouraged her to use locally available materials.  The two artists would later hold joint exhibitions of their work in 1983, with the assistance of an Australia Council development grant.  Nalda spend six weeks camping on her own in the Yilgarn (in the Eastern Goldfields) where she created a number of baskets using only the materials at hand - sticks, bark, grasses and flowers bound with hand-made string.  As a result of this project Nalda held her first major solo exhibition Bush Meetings and Basketry (1985) at the Craft Council of WA.

  By 1989 Nalda had an established profile and was featured in the ABC TV series The Makers.  However she wanted to learn more about arts as a whole, and enrolled and successfully completed a degree in Fine Arts, majoring in painting, at Curtin University of Technology.  In 1993, while undertaking the Healthway-funded Warna Wanti Street Art Project for indigenous peopke in Kalgoorlie, Nalda met senior Wongi woman Pantijiti Mary Mclean.  Through Nalda's encouragement, Mary has become a major indigenous painter. The two women worked collaboratively, sharing their skills, holding workshops and exhibiting together for many years.  The annual workshops where new skills such as needlework and coiling are taught have contributed to the spread of this art form throughout the remote desert communities.

  Nalda's practice continues to expand with the assistance of development grants for new works, and opportunities to work overseas as an artist-in-residence.  In 2009 her significant contribution to the arts was acknowledged by the State with a Lifetime Achievement Award.  She is represented in major public and private collections throughout Australia and the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Itami, Japan.

RT

Sources:

Major reference:  'Nalda Searles: Drifting in my own land' exhibition catalogue, edited by Andrew Nicholls, published by Nalda Searles and ART ON THE MOVE, 2009.

There are numerous exhibition catalogues and reviews.  http://searlesartist.blogspot.com 

 

PARROTT, Chrissie (1953-)  - dancer, choreographer, artistic director, visual artist

Chrissie Parrott's inventive productions put Western Australia at the forefront of Australian contemporary dance in the 1990s.  She continues to chart new territory by mixing ballet and contemporary dance with contemporary music, the visual arts and technology.  Her choreographic repertoire includes over 80 works for dance, theatre, film and multimedia companies.

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1953 Chrissie arrived in WA at age 10.  She studied ballet with Kira Bousloff and joined the West Australian Ballet, aged 19.  Her first work, Like Hiroshima: Just Another Fallout (1976) won a choreographic fellowship providing a grant to study in Sydney at the Choreo Centre and dance with One Extra Dance Company.

Returning to West Australian Ballet, it was dancing in Leigh Warren's Set Point Love Match in 1977 that confirmed her desire to switch to contemporary dance work.  "I thought, 'this is what I want to do.  I don't want to wear pointe shoes and tutus anymore'." (1)

It took a while to cut her strings to ballet.  Chrissie choreographed the acclaimed Catherine's Wedding (1978), a humerous work for the West Australian Ballet which was also performed at the Sydney Opera House and staged Galah at the Vic (1979) before immersing herself in contemporary dance in France, Germany and Sweden.

Returning to WA in 1986 with her husband, dancer Stefan Karlsson, and their infant son Griffeth, Chrissie set up Dance Collective as a 'pick up company' of freelance dancers to perform Earthworks (1987).  In 1988 she lectured in contemporary dance at the WA Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), choreographed for 2 Dance Plus, WA Ballet and created and danced in her solo Recycling of a Suburban Angel.

By 1988 Chrissie was a major force in Australian dance, staging Mirror Coda at The Quarry Amphitheatre, Blackbird and Invisible Choirs for WA Ballet and dancing in Sydney as Desdemona opposite Kim Walker in One Extra's Othello, where she was also Assistant Director.  In 1990 she established the Chrissie Parrott Dance Collective (CPDC) and was Associate Choreographer in Barry Moreland's WA Ballet.

Chrissie's partnerships with composers/musicians David Pye and Cathie Travers and designer Andrew Carter delivered consistently high artistic quality and innovation.  CPDC arguably had the strongest, most creative ensemble of dancers of any Australian contemporary dance company.  It won the Sidney Myer Group Award in 1992.

Renamed the Chrissie Parrott Dance Company in 1993, Chrissie continued to choreograph for her company and for major and regional companies around Australia.  CPDC toured many Australian cities, performed in Japan and Korea and held a residency in Indonesia. In 1996 CPDC was wound up and Chrissie took up a Department for the Arts Research Fellowship, spending time at WAAPA and at MEDIALAB in Paris, pursuing her interest in computer technology programs associated with the choreographic process.

In 2001 she held the position of Senior Research Fellow at WAAPA where she founded and directed LINK graduate dance company.  She concurrently held the position of Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology, teaching technology units to dance students.

Chrissie choreograophed Coppelia (1998, 2007) for the WA Ballet, which was filmed for ABC television in 2000, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (2006) which won the WA Dance Award for Outstanding Choreography.

In 2004 Chrissie formed Jambird with composer Jonathan Mustard, creating hybrid and multimedia works.  Productions included cyg.net dis-patch (2004), Barocoda and Metadance in Resonant Light (2008).  In 2009 Jambird enjoyed a sell-out season of The Garden at the Moores Building for Contemporary Arts in Fremantle, while Parrott danced, in the same week, at His Majesty's Theatre in Re-render, a solo directed by choreographer Jo Pollitt.

Chrissie's work is often designed for non-traditional spaces.  Over the past five years, she has traversed the field of visual and performance art, successfully presenting four exhibitions of digital art works.  These are figurative works showing digital lineages, wire frame and fully-rendered hyper realistic replicas of dancers.

She regularly presents as a keynote and motivational speaker at educational conferences and considers herself a "movement scientist".

(1) Communication to the writer, 22 March 2010

AWARDS

WA Citizen of the Year, 200

Centenary Medal, 2001

Further reading

http://www.performinglineswa.org.au/artists/Jambird/

'Why the Chrissie Parrott Company folded', Dance Australia, Issue 84, June 1996, pp32,33

The West Magazine, The West Australian, 18th April, 1992 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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