Exhibition celebrates rare talent

Ronaele Jones was a renowned Australian designer who produced furnishing textile print designs for some 30 years. Working with all the major Australian textile houses, as well as many in the UK and US, she sadly succumbed to breast cancer in January this year. The Historic Houses Trust has since acquired her design archives, and now, an exhibition at Rozelle’s Washhouse Gallery seeks to celebrate this talented artist’s life and career, with a number of friends having already lent their support.

Gallery Director Gillian Noble said Jones had been involved in the planning for the exhibition before her passing. “I think it’s very interesting the way she has a modern Australian take on the culture of our neighbours – her representations are very contemporary, with a twist,” she said. “These little drawings are quirky, funny, very affectionate as well – inspired by her travels, and the historic and current decorative cultures of the countries she visited.”

Those countries included India, Italy, Bali and Burma – and it was the latter, Noble says, that Jones had a particular passion for, with a number of statements about the lack of political freedoms there making their way into her work.

In the last few years of her life, Jones studied Persian and Afghan miniature painting at the College of Fine Arts, under the tutelage of Afghani miniaturist Rahimi Karim. Rahimi encouraged his students to produce miniatures based on their own culture, rather than slavishly following historical tradition – and this exhibition’s works are the result.

‘Have you met Miss Jones?’ is showing at the Washhouse Gallery from Tuesday, November 2 to Sunday, November 21