installations
Coming to Ground (garden)
‘Thank you Bette, for your vision, ‘stickability’ and for the depth and breadth of your connections with the land and its diverse life: Art to Indigenous and Migrant peoples understandings of landscape.
So many rich (and unknown) relationships. I look forward to engaging with the finished work.’
- Professor Stuart B. Hill, Foundation Chair of Social Ecology.
So many rich (and unknown) relationships. I look forward to engaging with the finished work.’
- Professor Stuart B. Hill, Foundation Chair of Social Ecology.
Coming to Ground 2011, (yet to be constructed). Eco-humanist mandala garden designed for multi-ethnic Western Sydney. (Graphics: Dr Hilary Rhodes.)
Coming to Ground 2011, Virtual view from inside the garden. (Graphics: Dr Hilary Rhodes.)
The ubiquity of photography and its indeterminate identity, versus its determinate identity in relation to painting, is one of the themes addressed by Bette Mifsud’s work about photography. Three of her installations: “Hallucinations and Other Facts”, “Mute” and her most recent work for the 1991 Perspecta, [“Vault Suite”], directly address this particular problematic. Her work combines these polarized positions by acknowledging photography has an identity in relation to painting…. Dr Susan Best, Continuum, Vol 6/2.s
Threshold
Threshold (designed 2011, not yet produced), four suspended transparencies (each measuring 300 x 400 cm) forming a 'room'. Inside is a replica of an ancient wooden boat.
Landmarks Watermarks
Landmarks Watermarks (1996), site-specific, two mode, multi-media installation for the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney.
Mode 1: Projector on, projecting a single 675cm x 360cm. (ie. full wall size) of a dark watery cave entrance showing sea view through cave arc. Projection on back wall of gallery directly opposite entrance.
Sound track of lapping waves is running, all other lights off. This mode lasts for 1 minute, 20 seconds.
Mode 2: Sound and projected image fade to off over 10 seconds, while gallery lights slowly come on using 20 second dimmer. Static pictures and other objects now fully visible as in a conventional exhibition. All equipment is synchronised using Dataton multimedia software operating the whole installation from a Mac LC computer.
Mode 1: Projector on, projecting a single 675cm x 360cm. (ie. full wall size) of a dark watery cave entrance showing sea view through cave arc. Projection on back wall of gallery directly opposite entrance.
Sound track of lapping waves is running, all other lights off. This mode lasts for 1 minute, 20 seconds.
Mode 2: Sound and projected image fade to off over 10 seconds, while gallery lights slowly come on using 20 second dimmer. Static pictures and other objects now fully visible as in a conventional exhibition. All equipment is synchronised using Dataton multimedia software operating the whole installation from a Mac LC computer.
Landmarks Watermarks, installation components:
1. The viewer enters through the divide in the centre of the photographic vinyl mural measuring 440 x 330cm, hung just inside the entrance gallery entrance. The mural shows the view of Oxford Street Paddington just outside the gallery.
2. A rectangular convex mirror (40 x 60cm) sits on a clear Perspex stand immediately opposite the entrance, so that the first thing people see upon entering the exhibition is their own reflected portrait set against the backdrop of Oxford Street. During Mode One, the viewer's portrait is framed by the cave projection on the back wall of the gallery.
3. A 30 x 30cm colour photograph of a tiny island surrounded by sea is mounted onto white Perspex measuring fixed at the back of the mirror.
4. Two colour, and one black and white montage photographs, plus one colour photograph each framed in wood and measuring 127 x 109cm rest upon wooden shelves 20cm deep, 300cm long and about 150cm above the floor, supported by decorative metal brackets: Symbolon, is a double portrait montage of my mother in Malta and Australia (1954 and 1952 respectively). Next to Symbolon is a self-portrait (1993) photograph by the Mediterranean Sea in Malta, with a tiny island in the distant background.
The third, an untitled digital montage photograph on the wall opposite, is an image I reconstructed just as seen in a dream. It shows a giant Maltese dome rising above the horizon of my father's old (dismantled) market garden in what is now a suburban area of Baulkham Hills in Western Sydney. This sits next to a fourth photographic montage showing the same market garden, with my father's Maltese village on the horizon, above which floats my young father's ghosted portrait. The village and church dome partially hide his face. These two photographs are framed and installed in the same manner as Symbolon and my self-portrait.
4. A clear Perspex water tank with a white base measuring 120 x 120cm x 15cm depth, contains 10 x A3 floating photographic transparencies of my migrant parents. (Like shards of china and pottery from all over the world that wash on the shores of Mrs Macquarie's Chair in Sydney Harbour.) The water is reflected on to the gallery ceiling, while the transparencies project their images onto the tank floor.
The tank is placed at the foot of the stand on the side showing the island print.
5. A shelf (300 x 30cm) fixed above the gallery entrance hidden behind the mural, supports all of the electronic equipment required to operate the installation, including the slide projector the lens of which protrudes through the mural.
1. The viewer enters through the divide in the centre of the photographic vinyl mural measuring 440 x 330cm, hung just inside the entrance gallery entrance. The mural shows the view of Oxford Street Paddington just outside the gallery.
2. A rectangular convex mirror (40 x 60cm) sits on a clear Perspex stand immediately opposite the entrance, so that the first thing people see upon entering the exhibition is their own reflected portrait set against the backdrop of Oxford Street. During Mode One, the viewer's portrait is framed by the cave projection on the back wall of the gallery.
3. A 30 x 30cm colour photograph of a tiny island surrounded by sea is mounted onto white Perspex measuring fixed at the back of the mirror.
4. Two colour, and one black and white montage photographs, plus one colour photograph each framed in wood and measuring 127 x 109cm rest upon wooden shelves 20cm deep, 300cm long and about 150cm above the floor, supported by decorative metal brackets: Symbolon, is a double portrait montage of my mother in Malta and Australia (1954 and 1952 respectively). Next to Symbolon is a self-portrait (1993) photograph by the Mediterranean Sea in Malta, with a tiny island in the distant background.
The third, an untitled digital montage photograph on the wall opposite, is an image I reconstructed just as seen in a dream. It shows a giant Maltese dome rising above the horizon of my father's old (dismantled) market garden in what is now a suburban area of Baulkham Hills in Western Sydney. This sits next to a fourth photographic montage showing the same market garden, with my father's Maltese village on the horizon, above which floats my young father's ghosted portrait. The village and church dome partially hide his face. These two photographs are framed and installed in the same manner as Symbolon and my self-portrait.
4. A clear Perspex water tank with a white base measuring 120 x 120cm x 15cm depth, contains 10 x A3 floating photographic transparencies of my migrant parents. (Like shards of china and pottery from all over the world that wash on the shores of Mrs Macquarie's Chair in Sydney Harbour.) The water is reflected on to the gallery ceiling, while the transparencies project their images onto the tank floor.
The tank is placed at the foot of the stand on the side showing the island print.
5. A shelf (300 x 30cm) fixed above the gallery entrance hidden behind the mural, supports all of the electronic equipment required to operate the installation, including the slide projector the lens of which protrudes through the mural.
Vault Suite
Vault Suite (1991), site specific installation for Australian Perspecta 1991, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Its four components are:
1. Crypt, 173 x 127 cm (suspended in window) comprising 3 Cibachrome transparencies mounted on clear perspex, of (i) x-ray of a painting and frame by Jacopo di Cione (16th C Italian painter); (ii) x-ray of a female human chest; (iii) small circular micro-graphic cross-section of a painting surface also from the 16th C. 2. Vault, 184 x 101 x 50 cm, Wooden (Poplar) construction. One face there is a black and white photograph scanned directly onto the timber, showing the hand-chiselled wooden back support for Jacopo di Cione's central altar panel seen x-rayed in Crypt (i). On its reverse face is my hand-chiselled copy of the original conservator's photograph of the hand-carved back of di Cione's panel. 3. Untitled, 160 x 60cm, old recycled timber planks resting against the wall (not shown here). 4. Untitled, consists of two black and white photographic transparencies showing a positive (102 x 58 cms), and a negative (155 x 86 cm) view respectively, of the scanned image in Vault. NOT FOR SALE
1. Crypt, 173 x 127 cm (suspended in window) comprising 3 Cibachrome transparencies mounted on clear perspex, of (i) x-ray of a painting and frame by Jacopo di Cione (16th C Italian painter); (ii) x-ray of a female human chest; (iii) small circular micro-graphic cross-section of a painting surface also from the 16th C. 2. Vault, 184 x 101 x 50 cm, Wooden (Poplar) construction. One face there is a black and white photograph scanned directly onto the timber, showing the hand-chiselled wooden back support for Jacopo di Cione's central altar panel seen x-rayed in Crypt (i). On its reverse face is my hand-chiselled copy of the original conservator's photograph of the hand-carved back of di Cione's panel. 3. Untitled, 160 x 60cm, old recycled timber planks resting against the wall (not shown here). 4. Untitled, consists of two black and white photographic transparencies showing a positive (102 x 58 cms), and a negative (155 x 86 cm) view respectively, of the scanned image in Vault. NOT FOR SALE
Mute
Mute (1990) shown as a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in 1991. Comprising: four suspended large format archival photographic transparency films, each measuring 230 x 110 cm; plus a framed transparency mounted on mirror and framed in wood, measuring 80 x 44 cm. This installation is a unique work produced by Fuji Film I&I, Tokyo, Japan. $AUD10,000.
murals
“Winner of the NSW Ministry for the Arts Inaugural 2002 Western Sydney Artist Fellowship, Bette Mifsud has won the major $10,000 prize in the Hazelhurst Art Award 2003 for Art on Paper…for her work, “Fugitive Ground”… Roger Butler, Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Australia, judged and awarded the price at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on 25 July.”
New South Wales Ministry for the Arts Bulletin #72, September, 2003.
New South Wales Ministry for the Arts Bulletin #72, September, 2003.
Sky
Sky (designed in 2004, not as yet produced), 200 x 771 cm, pigment print mounted on clear polycarbonate, suspended as a backlit ceiling arch.
Untitled
Untitled (2003) 200 x 1,058 cm, pigment print mounted on Mylar.
Fugitive Ground
Fugitive Ground (2002) 60 x 1240 cm mural, printed on archival paper mounted on Mylar. 1 of 1 $AUD8,000
single works, diptychs, triptychs
“Invariably, one gravitates towards works such as Mifsud’s digital photomontages, in which local slices of natures are supplemented with trees borrowed from the Dutch master Meindert Hobbema, or a section of Gloucester Cathedral.”
– John McDonald, “Westerly Directions”, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, 23-24 July 2005.
– John McDonald, “Westerly Directions”, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, 23-24 July 2005.
1. Dusk 1 (2004) archival print on paper, 108 x 84 cm. Unique print. $AUD500
2. Dusk 2 (2004) archival print on paper, 108 x 84 cm. Unique print. $AUD500
3. Cathedral (2004) archival print on 10mm clear acrylic. 160 x 85 cm. Unique print. $AUD4300
4. Homage to Caspar David Friedrich (2005) pigment print on canvas, 120 x 76 cm. 3 of 3 SOLD OUT
5. Lookout 1 (2006) archival print on paper, 95 x 130 cm, framed, 1 of 3 $AUD2300
6. Lookout 2 (2006) archival print on paper, 75.5 x 108 cm, framed, Unique print. $AUD 1100
7. Lookout 3 (2006) archival print on paper, 75.5 x 108 cm, framed, Unique print. $AUD 1100
8. Untitled (shift) 2009, archival print on paper, framed, 54 x 85 cm. Unique print. SOLD
9. Untitled (view of Lombok) (2011) archival print print on paper, 108 x 70 cm. 1 of 2. $AUD500
10. Ngauruhoe from the Ballroom, (2012), archival print on paper, 165 x 111.48 cm $AUD600
11. Untitled 1 (Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand, 2012). 75 x 108 cm. Digital print on archival paper. Unique print. $AUD500
12. Untitled 2 (Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand, 2012). 75 x 108 cm. archival print on paper. Unique print. $AUD500
series
Spare Time (2013)
Spare Time comprises of 34 photographic works are derived from 1950 and 60s family slides. The slides were scanned, cropped, edited and manipulated to create visual resemblances to impressionistic memories from which details have, over time, fallen away.
The original slides were taken by my late father-in-law, Doug Shearston a keen amateur photographer, and World War II veteran. After returning from three years’ active service in New Guinea and Borneo, Doug wanted an idyllic family life. This he helped create, and then documented in photographs.
A key link between ‘white’ Australia of the 1950s and 60s and multi-ethnic Australia today, is of course, the family. Now, digital family photographs travel the world at speed, weaving a growing web of human connections that, perhaps more than ever before, reinforce our collective memory and common humanity.
Like billions of other family photographs, these – re-presented here – will, hopefully, contribute to the visual unconscious of a global human family from which confrontation and division have also fallen away.
Spare Time is dedicated to the memory of George Douglas Shearston (1914-2007)
Each of the Spare Time images is:
List Spare Time Works:
# Title Print Size H x W cm Price $AUD # Title Print Size H x W cm Price $AUD
1. Afternoon Fishing 28 x 42 NFS 18. House Garden 26 x 42 $495
2. Backyard 27.7 x 42 $495 19. Lake 25.5 x 42 $495
3. Beach Family 1 27.7 x 42 SOLD 20. Lakeside Picnic 26.7 x 42 $495
4. Beach Family 2 31 x 42 SOLD 21. Memorial 42 x 42 SOLD
5. Beach Pair 21.5 x 42 $495 22. Observatory 50.5 x 80 $695
6. Boats 33 x 42 SOLD 23. Picnic Child 33 x 42 SOLD
7. Bowls 32 x 42 $495 24. Sand Hill Kids 28.5 x 42 SOLD
8. Boys and Boat 32 x 42 SOLD 25. Seaside Camp 36 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
9. Bridge 51 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2) 26. Snow Holiday 26.7 x 42 NFS
10. By the Seaside 54 x 80 SOLD 27. Sun Bathers 28 x 42 SOLD
11. Cemetery 49 x 80 $695 28. Three Women 30 x 42 SOLD
12. Dune Grass 53 x 80 SOLD 29. Two Men 42.8 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
13. Evening Boats 55 x 80 $695 30. Two Women 1 51.5 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
14. Formal Couple 34.5 x 42 SOLD 31. Two Women 2 51.5 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
15. Holiday House 1 22 x 42 NFS 32. Waiting Women 23.6 x 42 $495
16. Holiday House 2 28.7 x 42 $495 33. Water Skier 53 x 80 $695
17. Holiday House 3 42 x 47 SOLD 34. Wedding 26.7 x 42 $495
- printed on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper
- face-mounted to clear acrylic
- framed in a wooden retro style frame, painted ‘off white’.
- each Spare Time work is has a limited edition of 1 copy unless otherwise specified below.
List Spare Time Works:
# Title Print Size H x W cm Price $AUD # Title Print Size H x W cm Price $AUD
1. Afternoon Fishing 28 x 42 NFS 18. House Garden 26 x 42 $495
2. Backyard 27.7 x 42 $495 19. Lake 25.5 x 42 $495
3. Beach Family 1 27.7 x 42 SOLD 20. Lakeside Picnic 26.7 x 42 $495
4. Beach Family 2 31 x 42 SOLD 21. Memorial 42 x 42 SOLD
5. Beach Pair 21.5 x 42 $495 22. Observatory 50.5 x 80 $695
6. Boats 33 x 42 SOLD 23. Picnic Child 33 x 42 SOLD
7. Bowls 32 x 42 $495 24. Sand Hill Kids 28.5 x 42 SOLD
8. Boys and Boat 32 x 42 SOLD 25. Seaside Camp 36 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
9. Bridge 51 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2) 26. Snow Holiday 26.7 x 42 NFS
10. By the Seaside 54 x 80 SOLD 27. Sun Bathers 28 x 42 SOLD
11. Cemetery 49 x 80 $695 28. Three Women 30 x 42 SOLD
12. Dune Grass 53 x 80 SOLD 29. Two Men 42.8 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
13. Evening Boats 55 x 80 $695 30. Two Women 1 51.5 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
14. Formal Couple 34.5 x 42 SOLD 31. Two Women 2 51.5 x 80 SOLD OUT (2 of 2)
15. Holiday House 1 22 x 42 NFS 32. Waiting Women 23.6 x 42 $495
16. Holiday House 2 28.7 x 42 $495 33. Water Skier 53 x 80 $695
17. Holiday House 3 42 x 47 SOLD 34. Wedding 26.7 x 42 $495
Correspondence (2009)
1.Correspondence 2009 (tea tree) archival print on paper, 41.0 x 28.5 cm
2. Correspondence 2009 willow) archival print on paper, 41.0 x 28.5 cm
3. Correspondence 2009 wattle) archival print on paper, 41.0 x 28.5 cm
4. Correspondence 2009 fruit blossom) archival print on paper
5. Correspondence 2009 fern) archival print on paper, 41 x 28.5 cm
6. Correspondence 2009 Correa leaf) archival print on paper 41 x 16 cm
2. Correspondence 2009 willow) archival print on paper, 41.0 x 28.5 cm
3. Correspondence 2009 wattle) archival print on paper, 41.0 x 28.5 cm
4. Correspondence 2009 fruit blossom) archival print on paper
5. Correspondence 2009 fern) archival print on paper, 41 x 28.5 cm
6. Correspondence 2009 Correa leaf) archival print on paper 41 x 16 cm
The Living Room (2001)
The Living Room, installation view at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, 2001
1. Untitled (house on hill, Carcour NSW), T124 x 104 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD1500
2. Untitled (four trees on hill near Bredbo, NSW), 54 x 224 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. SOLD
3. Untitled (tree lines near Canberra), 41 x 224 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD2300
4. Untitled (serrated tussock grass near Oberon, NSW), 62 x 124 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD500
5. Untitled (dam near Nowra, NSW), 59 x 124 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD500
6. Untitled (Coal Mine, Gloucester, NSW), 66 x 224 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD2300
7. Untitled (nettle field near Cooma, NSW), 134 x 124 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD1500
8. Untitled (single tree, Braidwood, NSW), 79 x 224 cm. Type C photograph, mounted on Lexan. Unique photograph. $AUD2300
After Life (1996)
portraiture
“Have these Archibald Prize painters brought anything more than skill and energy to their portraits? Do they capture a likeness of their sitter?...or should we turn to photography for more revelation and insight? Some splendid work in this year’s Photographic Portrait Prize suggests it is a more vigorous contemporary medium. Bette Mifsud’s “Anzac Day Morning, 2005” disarmingly captures her unsure elderly sitters holding hands by their front door. “
– John McPhee, Bold Archies, The Bulletin and Newsweek 4.
– John McPhee, Bold Archies, The Bulletin and Newsweek 4.
1. Ninette Dutton 2004, digital photograph 119 x 110 cm dry-mounted to aluminium, French-polished timber slip and frame. SOLD
2. Writer, Trevor Shearston 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 82 x 113 cm, unframed. Unique print. $AUD2000
3. Anzac Day Morning 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 120 x 80.5 cm unframed. $AUD2000
4. Peter Spilsbury 2005
5. Peter Rushforth 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 51 x 61 cm, unframed. Unique print $AUD2000
6. Professor Clive Hamilton 2014
7. Wyn Jones (at Bob Carr's book signing) 2014
8. Self Portrait at Bush in Katoomba 2014
9. Lauren 2015
2. Writer, Trevor Shearston 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 82 x 113 cm, unframed. Unique print. $AUD2000
3. Anzac Day Morning 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 120 x 80.5 cm unframed. $AUD2000
4. Peter Spilsbury 2005
5. Peter Rushforth 2005, type C photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive photographic paper, 51 x 61 cm, unframed. Unique print $AUD2000
6. Professor Clive Hamilton 2014
7. Wyn Jones (at Bob Carr's book signing) 2014
8. Self Portrait at Bush in Katoomba 2014
9. Lauren 2015