Philippe Le Miere’s ‘Alice in Kellyland’ fuses two icons of Australian modernism: Charles Blackman’s Alice of Wonderland and Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly. What relation do these (anti)heroes bear? One is a blonde girl plucked from a British childrens book and the other is an infamous Australian outlaw, condemned to the gallows. Both however, can also be understood as symbols for the tenuous boundary between myth and reality. For Charles Blackman, Alice symbolised his wife while Sidney Nolan identified with the outcast Kelly.

Philippe LE MIERE (1975 - )
'Alice in Kellyland' 2024
acrylic on paper
Edition of 50
Image Size: 20 x 15 cm
Dimensions: 30 x 21 cm
Signed: Numbered, titled and signed in margin
Comes with Letter of Provenance

Condition: Excellent

(c) The Artist or Assignee

A word about the medium. This work is a pochoir (posh-waar) print. Emerging in late nineteenth-century Paris, pochoir printmaking involves layering and hand-colouring each component of the image. This unmechanized process gives each edition its own ‘aura’ while requiring significant time and skill. By the 1930s, pochoir had largely faded with the rise of more efficient, mechanized printing techniques. Master printmaker Jeffrey Makin was the first to connect Le Miere's experimental process with this nearly forgotten early twentieth-century practice. Subtle disturbances in the painted surface, with elements slightly misregistered, enhance its textural appeal. Once embraced by Matisse and Picasso, pochoir is now revived by Le Miere, uniting art and craftsmanship to imbue each piece with the essence of an original painting.