1990s

In 1990 I went overseas for four months, on an art exploration mission on a round-the-world ticket. I got back skinny and exhausted, but had sold more of my art while overseas than I had in Adelaide for a decade. I had offers to move overseas, but somehow wanted to stay in Adelaide. I decided to do my Honours year, in which I studied Postmodernism (to put it under one convenient umbrella). Immediately after I finished I was roped in to help with the massive A Brush with the Stage; South Australian Visual Artists involved with the stage 1930-1991 exhibition for the 1992 Festival of Arts. I was employed as art critic by The Advertiser newspaper in June 1992.

I then set about preparing my first major solo exhibition, for October, and was promptly elected President of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. Over the next two years I co-curated, then curated numerous exhibitions and and produced their catalogues, some as substantial monographs, and was editor of the Society’s journal, Kalori.

I left at the end of 1994, and began painting seriously again, holding two exhibitions in Adelaide and another in Sydney before the decade’s end. I also curated an exhibition for the Adelaide Festival Centre on Polish-Australian artists, to coincide with the PolArt festival (1994/95), and presented a family exhibition at Adelaide Town Hall.

I continued reviewing for the newspaper, but at the end of 1996 I was approached to undertake postgraduate studies under scholarship at the School of Art. I had won a scholarship to go there when I was about 14, but had declined to pursue it because of my youthful frailty and my wish to fulfil my academic subjects at high school. So it was full circle. But I had been feeling unwell for some time, and made the commitment without realizing my health was on the verge of a severe decline, which lasted for several years, until 2005.

I completed the degree at the end of 2000, but was not awarded the degree until 2002.

Landing 1990