Flora

Primarily a printmaker, Barbara Hanrahan explored with an unflinching directness some of the most complex facets of female experience. She drew on the experiences of her childhood in Adelaide in the 1940s and 1950s for much of her imagery, while the social upheavals of London in the 1960s and the artistic influences of the British Pop Art movement informed her stylistic development. Her work expressed two opposing, yet not necessarily contradictory, impulses: one looked outwards and expressed her sense of joy, wonder and connectedness with the natural world, as seen in this work; the other turned inwards to expose feelings of grief, sadness and anger. This drawing Flora was created while Hanrahan was living in London and can be interpreted as a self-portrait.

Maria Zagala, Associate Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs