Yvonne Audette stands among Australia’s most formidable abstract artists. Influenced by contemporary European and New York School tendencies, she came to prominence in the 1950s. Her delightfully singular works have been likened to ‘Art Informal’, Tachisme and Paul Cezanne. Consistently however, she appears preoccupied with layers both metaphoric and formal: “When I went to Europe in the mid-50s… my work responded to the layering of society itself – the remnants of murals on walls, the frescoes, the whole antiquity of civilization”.

This interest in layers permeates ‘Breakthrough’. Here, Audette overlays newspaper print with paint and gestural horses. None of the layers are perfectly clear, reveling instead in an obliqueness; ideas surge and fade, changing beyond recall. Even the work’s title - ‘Breakthrough’ - suggests obscured meaning trying to punctuate our consciousness.

Rejecting the linear and uniform, Audette invokes the multiplicity of meaning. Her work is represented in all state galleries, as well as Tarrawarra Museum, the Universities of Melbourne and Monash, and Artbank. In 1999, she was honoured with a major retrospective and publication and has been described by the National Portrait Gallery as “Australia’s greatest living abstract painter”. For collectors of Australian and Modern art, and prints, ‘Breakthrough’ is a triumph.
 

Yvonne AUDETTE (1930 - )
'Breakthrough' 1991
Screenprint - with 16 individual screens
Image Size: 87 x 59 cm
Dimensions: 100 x 70 cm
Signed: signed Audette, dated, editioned and titled in margin
Availability: in stock
Condition: Excellent
© The Artist or Assignee