Wendy Allen
1953-1957
Educated at Brisbane Girls Grammar School
1959 -1960:
Art Scholarship to Brisbane Central Technical College
studying under
tutors such as William Robinson, Melville Haysom and Carl Mc Connell.
Life classes with Jon Molvig and Andrew Sibley, on occasion with Roy Churcher.
Teaching part-time: Central Technical College –
History of Architecture to University of Queensland students
Child Art classes
Drawing to Jewellery Apprentices
Drawing to Hairdressing Apprentices
Qld Teachers’ College, Kelvin Grove (now Queensland University of Technology): relief Art Lecturer
Maryborough Girls High: relief Art Teacher
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Brisbane Courier Mail - 1959- prize winning entry
Caltex Contemporay Art competition - Brisbane City Hall |
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Brisbane Courieer Mail - c. 1960 - prize winning entry
Darnell Gallery, Qld Uni - "Laughing Woman" |
1971-73
Two successful one-man exhibitions at McInnes Gallery, Brisbane and a two- man exhibition at Gallery 90, Toowoomba.
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Exhibition opening 1972 with Len Shillam - opening address |
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At 1972 Exhibition |
1959-1973
Various group shows, e.g., Half Dozen Group, David Jones; Franz Beak Gow Gallery; H.C. Richards - Qld Art Gallery (3 commissions resulting); Caltex Prize for landscape in oils; runner-up in SGIO and Stanthorpe; winner of watercolour section, Darnell Gallery, Queensland University.
1975
Published Discovering Art (text for Secondary Schools) McGraw Hill, Sydney.
1961-1985
Full-time Art Teacher at Balmoral High, part-time at Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School and Moreton Bay College, and some Queensland Art Gallery classes.
Full-time Music and Art Specialist at Wynnum North Primary (10 yrs);
Visual Arts tutor at Early Childhood Teachers College, Kelvin Grove and mentor for University of Southern Queensland art students.
Set aside own painting career to research and advocate art education.
1985-2005
Resigned from education institutions to self-publish own curriculum for Primary Schools and Universities, Running on Rainbows Art Program. Workshopped teachers throughout Queensland including the Torres Strait Islands, free-lancing. First printed in 1989, exporting to USA, Canada and NZ, reprinted in1993; the third edition was printed in 2009 by Boolarong Press, Brisbane.
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Meeting the deadline for publication of Running on Rainbows (first published 1989) |
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Presentation of Running on Rainbows (2nd edition) to Doug Hall, Director Qld Art Gallery - 1993 |
1985-2006
Conducted workshops and delivered lectures and papers in Australia and NZ as member of the Australian Institute of Art Education (AIAE), and at the World Congress of International Society for Education through the Arts (INSEA).
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Artist in Residency Exhibition of chilren's artworks |
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Joining in with class in colour study |
1985 - 1990
Working on own painting projects
Drawing and Painting tutor for the Queensland Arts Council throughout Queensland.
Drawing and Painting tutor with the Australian Flying Arts School, throughout Queensland and northern NSW regional centres.
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Putting a film into the camera before take-off in the Flying Arts' Cessna 210 |
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Hanging out the washing |
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Ready to go!! |
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Guest, pilot, Wendy and potter at a county airstrip |
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Country painters unite! NSW |
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Leisure time after workshop at Lightning Ridge - going nowhere fast!
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1994
Australian delegate for the Eisenhower Ambassador Program for the exchange of Art Education in the Middle East - Egypt, Israel and Turkey.
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Delegates from around the world outside Israel Arts & Science School, Jerusalem |
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Student at work at Istanbul University |
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Mandatory dip in preparation for swim in the Dead Sea (between conferences) |
1995
Travelled throughout the USA lecturing on Art to Universities and Colleges; guest speaker for the Distinguished Lecture Series at Baylor University, Texas.
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Working with students in Florida - a high school in Fort Lauderdale |
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1996-2005
Sole director of own publishing company – Running on Rainbows Pty Ltd.
Workshopping throughout Qld, especially the Torres Strait Islands; and private Art teaching.
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Workshop with teachers in Townsville |
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Torres Strait - relaxing after the workshops in the Island schools |
2005/06
Wrote three courses on Aesthetics for the University of Southern Qld - for Masters, undergraduate and graduate courses (USQ Publication).
Worked in community projects with the Brisbane City Council.
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Convening project with street kids |
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Helping community members to design a public sculpture at Lota |
2006
Published basic book, The 12 Magic Tricks of Drawing, Boolarong Press.
2007-2008
Have been entered in The Who’s Who of Australian Women outlining work in the field of art education.
2006-2009
Full-time painting.
VISION:
* My vision is to carry on the now tenuous thread from the 1960s when, with other students at the Central Technical College in Brisbane such as John Aland, Warren Palmer and Merv Moriarty, I was a young student during the “Golden Years’ of art in Brisbane. We were there, active and passionate, at the life classes of Jon Molvig at Kangaroo Point or in the dark caverns of Andrew Sibley’s Valley studio, risking health disasters with Roy Churcher’s “happenings’, or skipping classes at Central Tech to see the first Blackman or Boyd shows at the wonderful Johnstone Gallery, now gone.
* I believe in an ethic of art practice in which strong drawing is a pre-requisite, proficient technique is a necessary skill, and content arises from the passionate need to express aspects of personal experience which are also universal.
* The majority of my paintings evolve in layers so that the content can be approached from a contemplation of several perspectives such as - the archetypal principles at work in Nature, references from any aspect of human endeavour such as mythologies, philosophies, religions and politics and from my own personal experience. The viewer can delve as deeply as he or she wishes.
* I prefer to work on large projects in which I can explore the subject from multiple perspectives. These require that I work alone, and not with community or other artists. That these projects, (such as that concerning King Island, a small island off Wellington Point, east of Brisbane) may take years is of no importance.
The study, learning and thinking that takes place in the process is as important as the resultant artwork.
PUBLICATIONS:
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Books Illustrated for McGraw Hill - 1975 |
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Art books written by Wendy Allen
Discovering Art - McGraw Hill, Sydney
Running on Rainbows - Self published
12 Magic Tricks of Drawing - Boolarong Press, Brisbane
University Southern Qld art courses |
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