Gembrook visual artist, Lesley Dickman is inviting the public into her personal creative world, opening her home studio on October 25–26 and the following weekend for the first time to showcase a lifetime of artwork spanning decades.
What began with finger painting in kindergarten has evolved into a remarkable journey of expression, exploration and installation for Ms Dickman.
Now, she is transforming her garden property into an immersive arts experience, giving visitors a rare opportunity to view her work in the place it was created.
“Art became my passion very early on. I’ve always been a visual person,” Ms Dickman said.
“I react to art emotionally, whether it’s my own or another artist’s and that feeling has never left me.”
After initially studying graphic art at Swinburne in the mid-60s, Ms Dickman later returned to complete a fine arts degree at Monash Caulfield while raising a young family.
Her professional career has included painting stage backdrops for the Australian Ballet and major theatre productions such as Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables.
But even while working on grand productions, Ms Dickman was always developing her own studio practice.
“It shaped the scale of my work. Painting those massive backdrops meant I became comfortable working large, it’s hard to go back to small canvases after that,” she said.
Through the 1980s, she shared studio space in Brunswick under the Fringe umbrella during the early years of the Melbourne Arts Festival.
“That experience took the fear out of exhibiting. It was so important,” she said.
Since 1993, Ms Dickman has held 24 solo exhibitions and taken part in 27 group shows.
Her works are expressive, often deeply personal, and never bound to a single theme or style.
One of her most recognised installations, ‘Salt and the Dress’, was the product of two years’ work and a collaboration with the Cheetham Salt Company.
It featured full-length dresses encrusted with salt, photographs of salt flats and camellia gloves, and was exhibited at Walker Street Gallery and Swan Hill Regional Gallery.
Ms Dickman said that body of work was both a personal and political statement.
“The dresses reflected memories of my mother, who was a professional dressmaker. Dressmaking was just part of life at home,” she said.
“But it also questioned how femininity is defined, how we’re sold an idea of beauty. Salt can be beautiful, but it’s also corrosive – there’s a crossover there.”
Ms Dickman’s art frequently explores feminist themes.
Other works have honoured women and girls whose stories are erased or undervalued, and recent paintings depict women in watercraft, figures of strength and resilience.
Now, with her long-time exhibiting gallery having closed due to illness, Ms Dickman has reimagined her home studio as a gallery space.
Built by her partner Roger Strickland, the converted barn on their one-acre property now holds decades of her work, from figurative painting to political installation and expressive abstraction.
“It’s not a slick gallery,” she said.
“It’s higgledy-piggledy, the work spans different eras and ideas, but that’s okay, it reflects my journey.”
The open studio will include works by her sister, also a designer and artist, and paintings by Roger in a separate studio on the property.
Afternoon tea will be available thanks to a neighbour, and visitors are encouraged to wander the garden between exploring the three creative spaces.
“It’s not really about selling. That’s a bonus if it happens,” Ms Dickman said.
“It’s about opening the space, sharing the work, and letting people experience it for themselves.”
The open studio will run across two weekends, 25–26 October and the following weekend, 1-2 November at Ms Dickman’s Gembrook property.
“It’s just an invitation to come and look. I’ve worked hard over the years, and I want to share that, not in a white-cube gallery, but in my space, where it all happens,” she said.
You can also view Ms Dickman’s work on her website, lesleydickman.com, which includes a contact page for those wishing to get in touch.
