Media Release
13 March 2024
Two contemporary Tasmanian artists, Gaby Falconer and Jenny Dean, respond to the journals of well-known colonial women, Elizabeth Fenton and Mary Morton Allport, in a visual retelling for a new audience.
Within the striking prints, ceramics, and illustrations, are scenes from the prolific journals of these women. Falconer and Dean were inspired by the double lives that these colonial women led. On the one hand, they upheld the rigid expectations of society at the time, and on the other they embraced their resourcefulness – cooking echidna stews and climbing through windows to escape undesirable visitors.
Like the artists, Elizabeth and Mary made meaningful connections to their worlds through writing, art and music. Creativity allowed them an independence and fulfillment that was otherwise absent. Their journals cover the arc of their lives – from arriving in an unknown land in 1831 and 1829, and the challenging conditions they faced – to their eventual success as respected matriarchs of the young colony.
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