Diary

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.

“My mother died suddenly in Australia at the end of 1990 and Diary is one in a series of 10 prints were focused on memories of our relationship and a celebration her life. The frame suggests a box filled with objects. Inside the box are the letters that my mother and I wrote to each other on a regular basis. I used hairpins as a metaphor to suggest a code that we both understood and the closeness that we had despite the great distance between us. At the centre of image is a folded leather cloth that secretly contains a group of sapphires mined by her father that my mother had passed on to her three daughters. I regret that I never showed any appreciation for the gems or the role that my grandfather played in digging them out of the ground. Her death reminded me to have them made into jewelry for my sisters and myself.” – Lyndal Osborne