I want to produce work which is really strong and yet very delicate...
I want to express the female strength.
Heather Blake-Smith was born in London in 1933. She studied at Eastbourne School of Art before winning a place at the new Interior Design school at the Royal College of Art. On graduation she worked on major architectural projects in London and New York before arriving in Sydney in 1962, as perhaps the first university trained interior designer in Australia.
Working in Sydney, Heather met and married architect Terry Dorrough. She began making fabric and fibre works after the birth of her first child. These first striking modernist textiles caused her adoption into the Craft movement, and involvement in the formation of the Craft Councils of Australia and NSW. She pioneered the development of machine embroidery techniques, painting with dyes, and the sculptural use of fabric, with highly successful exhibitions and large scale public commissions, bridging the craft/art divide.
With unswerving commitment to seeing her practice through the lens of her life, Heather went on to produce some of the most admired feminist works of the 1980s, her ‘Self Portraits’, body casts and drawings, and sculptural installations in Australia and overseas gaining her recognition in the contemporary art world.
In later years, ever ready to remake herself she studied traditional oil painting and print making techniques, with the desire to capture the spirit of her home environment she so loved, the dark gleaming beauty of Dyarubbin /the Hawkesbury River.
Heather remained a committed teacher, feminist and environmentalist. Her work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery, state and regional galleries across Australia, the Powerhouse Museum, the NSW Parliament, and many other corporate and private collections in Australia and abroad.
NSW Parliament House Dining Room commission, 1980. Photo: Max Dupain
The Book
This new book reveals the life and work of a highly individual Australian: an artist, designer, and maker whose career spanned six decades. Alongside a wealth of biographical information and intimate family photographs, this book about Heather Dorrough’s life and work shows her art through all stages of career and includes three specially commissioned essays.
The Exhibition
HEATHER
+ KATE
DORROUGH
Lineage
In conversations across time, the multidisciplinary works of mother and daughter, Heather and Kate Dorrough explore the nexus between the arts and crafts movements, female creative lineage, body and landscape, river and fertility, and environmental issues and activism.