YVONNE AUDETTE

The internationalist art of Yvonne Audette is well founded, first in New York in the early part of the fifties, then melded with the European sophistication of Rome, Florence, Milan and Paris. Her Australian teachers were John Passmore and Godfrey Miller; her international contemporaries included Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Cy Twombly. On return to Australia, her first show at Sydney's Bonython Gallery in 1968 was shared with an old friend, the sculptor Robert Klippel. It opened to critical acclaim. Now, in 2007, after survey shows at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1999 and Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2000, she will be further honoured by a spring exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Audette has always been interested in music – she studied piano in Sydney and violin in New York – and her works, like this one, often have musical titles. There are numerous paintings from the cantata series and divertimenti, each distinguished by elegance, finesse and poise. For Audette, music sends images and messages of contrasting colours and dynamic spatial subtleties; the paintings relate the vibrations of tone and colour to the music. While she may like listening to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart, she also enjoys jazz and rock and roll. Her first Rock and Roll dates from 1976-77, the warm colours and richly handled paint in the 1979 version expressing all the beat and rhythm of lively movement.