Gateway to the Interior

Lyndal Osborne was born in Newcastle, Australia. She studied at the National Art School in Sydney and received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA . Since 1971, Osborne has been based in Edmonton, and is Professor Emeritus in Department of Art and Design, University of Alberta. Osborne has been exhibiting in Canada and internationally since the early 1970s and has shown in over 360 exhibitions. She is represented in many private and public collections worldwide. Osborne’s sculptures and installations have developed an individual approach that utilizes found and recycled material that she alters through the application of color, manipulating their original shape, and/or by placing the objects in new contexts so they develop new metaphorical meaning. Her installation work speaks of the forces of transformation within nature, as well as commenting upon pressing issues relating to the environment. In her work Osborne has focused on an examination of the issues of genetically modified organisms and more recently on the crisis in the global oceans.

In Gateway to the Interior , the artist honours the memory of her mother, with whom she was very close. This lithograph was produced shortly after her death and depicts her comforting spirit, represented by the white form on the right of the image, reminiscient of an accordian-folded map to symbolize their geographical distance. On the left, a mass of tubes are stacked, ready to ship the print to exhibitions around the world, a metaphor for the artist’s professional life in Canada far from her home of Australia. The print is a shadowy picture with subtle touches of colour. The overwhelming darkness communicates the deep-rooted, mournful emotions the artist experienced when her mother passed away. She says of the time, “I was immersed in the creation of a series of prints that were completely derailed as I dealt with the intensity of my feelings.”