Rachel Hine

Rachel Hine
Heard not the voice of a bird 2020
wool, silk, metallic yarn and cotton
Geelong Gallery
Purchased with funds generously provided by Christine Bell, Geelong Contemporary and the Sybil Craig Bequest Fund, 2020

Geelong-born artist Rachel Hine’s works situate contemplative figures in surreal landscapes, using the ancient medium of tapestry used to depict both real and fictional characters in contemporary, dreamlike contexts.

Having trained with acclaimed weaver Kate Derum at Monash University and previously working as an artist with the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Hine’s practice also incorporates drawing and painting as an integral part of her creative process. The ethereal atmosphere of Hine’s watercolour portraits feeds through to the nuanced colour palettes and illustrative character of her intricate hand-woven pieces.

Heard not the voice of a bird (2020) comes from Hine’s most recent body of work (exhibited at Boom Gallery in late 2020) and is her most ambitiously scaled tapestry to date. The scene evokes a time when the Australian bush was ‘a place of mystery and chaos’ and depicts a cloaked woman drifting through a whimsical nocturnal scene. The distinctive jagged leaves and brushy flowers of banksia and yellow spheres of wattle are distinct amongst this work’s vivid flora, with outlines of dogs, birds, houses, faces and a gathering of shadowy figures emerging from the dark, appearing as though manifestations of this mysterious protagonist’s imagination.

Hine’s practice has a strong resonance with the Gallery’s existing collection focus of works that depict the figure within the landscape, and demonstrates a contemporary interpretation of this enduring theme in Australian art. The title of the tapestry has its origins in a poem published in The Australian Babes in The Wood, a true story. Told in rhyme for the young by The Author of ‘Little Jessie,’etc. (1866), inspired by the disappearance of the Duff children in the Mallee in 1864.