Blue Ridge Moon continues Kylie Banyard’s interest in drawing out the hidden women’s histories of the influential experimental art school Black Mountain College (USA, 1933-57). Archival research combined with the artist’s own photographic images result in a series of paintings that propose a present that is thick with remembrances of the past – one where female creativity and kinship has fulsome representation. Where models of generative and adaptive communal living prioritise creative play and rethink ways we might live together.

‘Kylie Banyard’s work is part tribute to the trailblazing women of Black Mountain, part proposition for a values revolution. It repurposes Black Mountain’s progressive vision of art-driven sustainable living for contemporary times, and it does so by repurposing painting away from its self-reflexive discourse and towards imaging joyful alternatives to being in the world.’

From Jacqueline Millner’s catalogue essay for The National 2019: New Australian Art.

Photos: Docqment