‘Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum’ celebrates a landmark Australian artist 

Lesley Dumbrell is equally delighted and overwhelmed to walk through the rooms of Thrum, the first art museum survey exhibition of her work as one of Australia’s most respected abstract painters at the Art Gallery of NSW.

“It’s astonishing,” she tells City Hub, standing amongst a selection of her artworks in the exhibition’s fourth room. “I’m still coming to terms with it, because it’s hung so beautifully and it’s a flow in time. It’s like a diary of my life, because I can remember every painting, where I was living at the time.”

Featuring over 90 works from more than five decades, Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum is a long overdue celebration of a true innovator in Australian art. She pushed the envelope on Australian abstract art in a time when it was discouraged, and was at the forefront of the 1970s feminist movement in her creation of the still-active Women’s Art Register, an archive of women’s art in Australia. 

The exhibition showcases Lesley’s instantly recognisable abstract style that places heavy emphasis on colour and precise, geometric shapes and lines. There’s a number of Art Gallery favourites like Solstice 1974 and Spangle 1977, but the show also features many of her studies done on paper, allowing visitors a unique look at her creative process that’s rarely been seen outside of this exhibit. 

An illustrated handbook with writing from curator Anne Ryan and contributors like Consuelo Cavaniglia, Scott Elliot, Terence Maloon and Dr Juliette Peers available for purchase also accompanies the exhibition, giving visitors a chance to dig even deeper into Lesley’s body of work. 

“Overwhelming and wonderful,” says Lesley Dumbrell

To see the trajectory of her career in this exhibition is both overwhelming and wonderful, Lesley says. “I’m living in Bangkok and rummaging through there, and some of these pieces have never seen the light of day! It’s weird, it’s wonderful and a huge honour. I never even thought this would have existed, it wasn’t in my radar at all, so I’m pretty much over the moon.”

NSW Art Gallery curator Anne Ryan has worked with Lesley to bring the exhibition to life in an experience that she said has been a dream. “She’s a very open and collaborative artist,” Anne explains, “But the thing that really gets you when you’re doing a show is the work. Getting to work with an artist who’s got such a long pedigree has been a thrill.”

“Discovering the work with her has been fascinating, and I’ve gotten to talk to her about things you read in books like the women’s art movement,” Anne says. “It’s living history, and that’s really exciting for both me and Lesley. The exhibition is not only a journey through the career of an accomplished abstract artist, it also quietly reflects changing social dynamics that have been a feature of the artist’s life and times.” 

No sign of stopping

Lesley had nothing but praise for the NSW Art Gallery team: “When Anne first contacted me, I said ‘You do know I come from Victoria, that I’ve never lived in Sydney?’ But she said it was about the work, and that the Gallery really wanted to put it up. 

“The politics of art can be quite complicated, but this team of people here and the gallery director Michael Brand make it the most harmonious, wonderful place to be working with. They’ve been fantastic. It’s been the smoothest thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m just blown away.” 

Though now in her eighties, Lesley’s got no plans to stop making art. Having recently discovered a newfound fascination with sculpture, seeing all of her work together in this exhibition has given her a new spark of creativity. 

She says: “It’s been wonderful to see because I’ve even learned things about myself in the work that I didn’t even know. So new work is coming; it’s the most exciting stimulation to go on, and I’m excited to see where I can take it further.”

Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum, 20 July – 13 October 2024
Free entry at the Art Gallery of NSW
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/lesley-dumbrell/