Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum

Tracing the phases and themes that have defined the artist’s creative trajectory

Lesley Dumbrell (b. 1941) is one of Australia’s most remarkable abstract artists. A stalwart of the women’s art movement in the 1970s, Dumbrell is known for her sophisticated and lyrical abstract paintings and works on paper. Highly ordered and exactly rendered, her immersive and compelling work transports the viewer into worlds of vibrant rhythm, color, and sensation.

As a young woman, Dumbrell was inspired by the writings of Wassily Kandinsky and the work of Bridget Riley, whose paintings conveyed the power of abstract art to express memory and emotion, natural phenomena, and the human experience. Dumbrell’s remarkable facility with color and grasp of the organizing power of the grid remain at the heart of her distinctive and exploratory abstraction, sustained over five decades of practice in Melbourne, the Strathbogie Ranges of northern Victoria, and Bangkok, Thailand.

Published on the occasion of a major retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this richly illustrated book showcases the evolution of Dumbrell’s artistic language. It includes insightful essays by exhibition curator Anne Ryan, art historians Terence Maloon and Juliette Peers, and artist Consuelo Cavaniglia, plus an interview with the artist herself.

Anne Ryan is curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and curator of this exhibition.