Rebecca Lavis: Shacks and footy
Exhibition dates: Tues 10 July – Fri 28 July 2007
View the artworks
Rebecca Lavis lives and works in the exquisite beauty of the North West Coast of Tasmania. This rugged and windswept landscape is dotted with tiny shacks dwarfed by moss-covered cliffs and nestled in button grass.
These handmade shacks are family treasure-boxes, filled with holiday ephemera, shell collections, dog-eared paperbacks, cupboards full of games, fishing gear, frisbies, and half-perished footies. This uniquely Tasmanian shack architecture has survived the roaring forties for generations, but is now rapidly disappearing, as the real estate boom reaches further and further afield.
Football goes hand-in-hand with shacks, and most families have recollections of games played with friends, or burbling from the radio. Football is an inclusive pastime, from the backyard game, a pie and beer, to the knitted scarves, yellowing posters, old trophies and card collections. From grandma to grandson, the game can and does include whole families and communities. Each weekend, footy is also like life drawing on steroids, and in SHACKS AND FOOTY, Rebecca captures the players, the game and the memorabilia and combines it with the romance and isolation of the landscape and shacks where she lives.
In 2005, Rebecca’s work was included in Robyn Archer’s Tasmania Arts Festival - 10 days on the Island. Her work went on to be part of the 2006 Melbourne International Arts Festival as an installation in Federation Square as part of Big hART’s acclaimed Radio Holiday project. The paintings subsequently returned to the 2007 10 Days on the Island Festival, touring the state.
Rebecca studied art in Adelaide from 1981 to 1984 where she spent most of the time in the pub. She is a painter and printmaker who also works in ceramics and textiles. She exhibits in Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Sydney. Her prolific output comes, in part, from the isolated environment where she lives and creates with her family and partner playwright Scott Rankin, fuelled by the constant inspiration of this unique landscape and culture.
“I’ve watched Rebecca’s work develop over the last two decades. She has a unique eye and I love the way she thinks about painting. We painted together at Couta Rocks, and exhibited together during 10 Days on the Island and Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. I love this work.” Robert Hannaford
