wotwedid

Ruby Spowart with LEICA M6 c1994

..

HOTA COLLECTS: RUBY SPOWART – A DOCUMENTARY

Late in 2025 Home Of The Arts (HOTA) on the Gold Coast featured a selection of Ruby Spowart’s photomontage works in the exhibition HOTA Collects: Metamorphosis. The show was a major undertaking bringing together over 30 works from the HOTA collection that represented artists’ use of collage and photomontage to reconfigure images examining themes such as feminism, environmentalism, and the connection between self and place.

Ruby Spowart works Metamorphosis PHOTOs: Charlie Hillhouse

Artists selected for Metamorphosis included: Brett Whiteley, Rebecca Ross, Rosalie Gascoigne, James Gleeson, Robert Klippel, Julie Rrap, Sally Smart, Jemima Wyman, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Judith Wright as well as Ruby.

RUBY’S WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Ruby Spowart South Stradbroke Triptych 1992

Ruby Spowart – EXPO Geometric 1, 2 & 3 1988

RUBY SPOWART FEATURED IN A DOCUMENTARY

To accompany the Metamorphosis exhibition HOTA commissioned a documentary film which covered her background, her work and legacy. Four artists were invited to reflect on how Ruby had shaped their lives and artistic journeys.

HOTA’s statement for the documentary states:

Born in 1928 in the regional Victorian town of Numurkah, Ruby Spowart was a pioneering artist who forged an expansive arts career and enduring legacy. Her visionary spirit was always evident, sustaining a prolific photographic practice whilst giving back to the community through her role as co-founder of Imagery Gallery (Brisbane).

Edit Suite filming of interviews    IMAGES: Courtesy of The Edit Suite

THE INTERVIEWEES: Top Left – Doug and Kimberley Stokes, Top Right – Rebecca Ross, b-l Jo-Ann Driessens and b-r – Paul Andrew and Doug Spowart

Each artist provided their insights: Paul Andrew connected with Ruby and her work in the 1980s by attending Imagery Gallery exhibitions. After time working as a curator at the Australian Centre for Photography, he is now well known for his Australian ARI Living Archives Blog and research on the Gay movement. Jo-Anne Driessens attended Imagery Gallery photo workshops in the 1980s and is a respected first nations photographer, curator and consultant. Rebecca Ross is a Gold Coast artist, curator and academic who although never met Ruby personally has been inspired by Ruby’s work.

Commenting on Ruby’s practice and legacy online documentary interviewee Paul Andrew was to make the following comment about working on this video project:

it was … a great joy and pleasure to be involved in. Speaking reflectively about the photomedia informed creative practice, experimental practice and social practice of Ruby Spowart [1928-2024] was an essential experience for me, as Ruby was one of many invaluable mentors for myself and many others as we set out as young artists in Eighties Brisbane to start a series of artist run spaces in Brisbane Meanjin. The short HOTA documentary includes artist colleagues from the Gold Coast region and forms part of the bedazzling exhibition. As a stalwart of Southeast Queensland artist-run communities of practice in the 1980s and 1990s Ruby’s practice is kaleidoscopic in nature and her legacy continues today, a cultural polymath.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/headlandsrevisited/posts/1264915432315439/

TO VIEW THE DOCUMENTARY ON YOUTUBE

.

RUBY SPOWART AND HOTA: A 40 YEAR CONNECTION

Ruby’s ROIDSCAPES exhibition @ Centre Gallery opening

Ruby had quite a connection with the Gold Coast City Art Gallery (now known as HOTA).  Back in 1986 her exhibition ROIDSCAPES (Polaroid SX-70 collages) premiered along with a Jim Brodie exhibition when The Centre Gallery was opened. Her work was included in the exhibition A Complementary Caste: A Homage to Women Artists in Queensland Past and Present held at The Centre Gallery on the Gold Coast in 1988.

Ruby with South Stradbroke Triptych at the Gallery in 1992

In 1989 she was a joint winner, National Women’s Art Award Gold Coast Art Prize. Following on in 1992 as a participant in an artist’s in residence on South Stradbroke Island with other art luminaries which resulted in her seminal work South Stradbroke Triptych 1992 and exhibited at the gallery in 1992. In 2005 Ruby moved to the Gold Coast and continued with the Gold Coast City Art Gallery connection as a volunteer for many years.

HOTA Gallery Director Tracy Lavery-Cooper’s mention in VAULT Magazine

In 2019 the HOTA Gallery Director Tracy Lavery-Cooper contributed to an article in VAULT Magazine asked a series of prominent female curators, artists and creatives to nominate a female artist or artists for whom recognition is overdue. Lavery-Cooper nominated Ruby  remarking that:

Ruby’s work has a freshness that aligns more with a younger generation of photographers. Her constructed images explore collage and Polaroid techniques and have a clear tendency towards international photography practice in the 1970s. Now in her early 90s Ruby lives locally and is still active in national photography awards and exhibitions.

In 2021 negotiations began with HOTA to receive a selection of Ruby’s work. It concluded the following year with a large and comprehensive collection of Ruby’s works being acquired by part purchase and part donation. The range of work, all vintage in origin and mostly as unique states, provided an opportunity for HOTA to have a unique and important body of Ruby’s work.  She was quite excited with this outcome. Additionally the QAGOMA acquired a small number of works to add to their small collection of Ruby’s works, and later on the State Library of Queensland took her professional archive and a suite of photographs into their artist’s archive. The SLQ had in 1995 accepted the 15-year Imagery Gallery archive.

Ruby + Doug in Imagery Gallery c1988

Ruby and Doug co-founded Imagery as a photo-based artist-run space in South Brisbane in 1980. Imagery Gallery operated between 1980 to 1995 and showed 205 exhibitions featuring work by Ruby, Doug and many local, interstate and international artists.

THE DOCUMENTARY TEAM

The documentary was coordinated by HOTA Curator Kimberley Stokes and produced by The Edit Suite team on the Gold Coast. Four interviews for the documentary were completed over two days in Brisbane and at the Gallery on the Gold Coast.  Doug Spowart provided visual material from personal archives and advice on matters relating to Ruby’s work and life.

EPILOGUE

Ruby Spowart @ HOTA Opening  2021 PHOTO Ted Spowart

Ruby passed away late in 2024 – there is no doubt she would have been excited by this exhibition and documentary project. If she were here, she would have expressed her thanks to all who made this possible including the 4 interviewees, HOTA Curators Kimberly Stokes and Sam Creyton, artist colleagues Rebecca Ross, Jo-Ann Driessens, Paul Andrew, past HOTA Directors Tracy Lavery-Cooper, Susi Muddiman and The Edit Suite team.

Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper also wish to express their thanks to all involved with the project.

Copyright: Portraits of Ruby by Doug Spowart except for the 2021 photo by Ted Spowart. Gallery installation photos are by Charlie Hillhouse. Film stills and video ‘HOTA Collects: Ruby Spowart’ (2025), produced by The Edit Suite. Courtesy of The Edit Suite. @theeditsuite

.

In the preparation of this text Doug Spowart sourced some text elements from the HOTA website and press material, Doug also wishes to acknowledge that some editorial refinement and structural feedback was provided through dialogue with ChatGPT.

.

.

.

.

.