Slipping Sideways
Slipping Sideways
Dorothy Lipmann
20 – 31 October 2026
hours:
Tuesday – Friday: 12pm – 7pm
Saturdays: 12pm – 4pm
admission: Free
… crossing a line with what society chooses not to see, and how it views women who don’t conform to its norms…
Slipping sideways is to move outside, from the predictable into the unknown. Its an asymmetrical movement indicating uneasiness and discomfort, with a sense of impermanence and loss of control. The concept of slipping sideways encompasses the absurd, out of character, not normal, and free of directness.
More elderly women are becoming homeless who have never faced circumstances outside of their control before. This is a re-occurring theme in my work which involves memory and a sense of injustice since I started exhibiting in 1987. It allows for hybrid forms to go off at a tangent into something you don’t know what you are looking at. It is crossing a line with what society chooses not to see, and how it views women who don’t conform to its norms. The point is, it could be anyone, battling for visibility and wanting to be treated with humanity.
The essence is towards a unity of opposites even when the present is unpredictable and uncertain. This is about finding the extraordinary in something very ordinary, where something seen sparks the imagination and gives total freedom to paint exactly as we please.
This exhibition also depicts paintings from the Pilbara, where I saw Burrup Peninsula rock art (petroglyphs) being sacrificed for mining.
I see a commonality between our attitude to homelessness and our reluctance to control mining excesses.
I want to give form and feeling to concerns such as what it is like to live rootless, as a drifter without a home or connections, and to live in a landscape that we mythologise yet exploit.
Dorothy Lipmann is a Melbourne based artist.
Training
1967-69 – Fine Arts (Painting) – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
1970 – Fellowship Year – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne University
Exhibitions
1987 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
1989 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
1992 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
1994 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – group show
1995 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
1997 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
1997 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – group show
1999 – Pinacotheca Gallery, Waltham Place, Richmond – solo show
2001 – Polly Courtin Gallery, Swanston Street, Melbourne – solo show
2004 – 4 Cats Gallery, Johnston St, Collingwood – solo show
2005 – 4 Cats Gallery, Johnston St, Collingwood – solo show
2008 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – group show
2008 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2011 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2012 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2013 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2014 – Summer Salon – Collingwood Gallery – group show
2014 – Leave the Animals Alone – Collingwood Gallery – group show
2014 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2016 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2017 – Collingwood Gallery, Smith St, Collingwood – solo show
2020 – Tanami Desert – drawings
2021 – fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane – group show online
2022 – fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane – solo show
2024 – fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane – solo show
2026 – fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane – solo show
Acquired By
Museum of Modern Art, Brisbane
Yarra City Council, 2013