Annabelle Collett: Creator and catalyst

Story by Kathie Muir.

Page left: Swamp Corset and Swamp Skirt, 2019. Installation shot at ‘From the Inside: Tokuremoar’ exhibition. Photograph by Richard Hodges. Above: Lunch with Frida, 2015. Photo by Sandra Elms.

In April of last year, friends, family and colleagues farewelled artist Annabelle Collett. Annabelle was only 64 and sadly passed away due to complications arising from cancer.

A posthumous exhibition at the Signal Point Art Gallery in Goolwa celebrates her large body of work and the significant contributions she made to South Australian art and culture throughout her illustrious career. A book written by Kathie Muir and published by Wakefield Press documents her extraordinary creative output. Both the book and the exhibition are titled Annabelle Collett: Creator and Catalyst.

The exhibition will feature a range of Collett’s works across fashion, design and visual art, including: knitwear, painted textiles, sculptural textile works, gouache, soft furnishings, camouflage, plastic sculptural works, and smaller consumables. Some of her smaller multiple works and knitwear will also be available for sale at the gallery shop during the exhibition. The book follows Collett’s lifelong artistic contribution beginning with her early years as a fashion and interior designer working in the east end of Rundle Street during the cultural explosion that coincided with the final years of the Dunstan era. It continues through to her later explorations of the human form, including her amazing ‘Plastic Fantastic’ sculptural bodywear made from found plastic.

Collett was a significant figure in the development of Adelaide’s East End and the city’s developing art, fashion, design and gastronomic scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the time, Adelaide was an emerging hub of alternative Australian culture, and Annabelle was gaining an international following for her innovative and exuberant knitwear with its zany colours and lush organic designs.

During this period, Annabelle was commissioned to design the interior of the iconic Limbo night club in Fenn Place off Hindley Street. Limbo quickly became known around Australia as the hippest venue in the country and still has a Facebook fan group dedicated to it today. Soon after it opened, reviewer John McGrath wrote in the Adelaide Review: ‘Limbo is a place unique in Australia. Go There immediately.’ >

Top left: Ground Work – laser cut fabric collage from the Disruptive Pattern series. Photo by Michael Kluvanek. Above right: Annabelle in her studio. Photo by Cynthia Jones. Below left: War Books – a series of works with satiric and provocative titles. Photo by Michael Kluvanek. Below middle: Red Armour 2014. Photo by Rachel Harris. Below right: Jewel Mask 2013. Photo by Sandra Elms.

In 1985, Collett’s design excellence was recognised by her inclusion in Courvoisier’s Book of the Best – ‘the ultimate global guide to what’s in now.’

In her later sculptural works and her community work in her adopted home at Clayton Bay, she investigated the waste associated with the ubiquitous nature of single-use plastics, repurposing them into objects of beauty and functionality. In Disruptive Pattern Syndrome, Collett explored the nature of camouflage patterns, creating pieces that offer comment on war and domestic camouflage, including their use as ‘fashionable’ patterns apparently stripped of meaning. While often playful in her commentary, Collett’s practice also included pointed feminist critique of the beauty industry and the expectations upon women to conform to particular modes of beauty.

Collett’s art practice throughout the 1990s and right through until her death continued to explore her love of textiles and her concern with the gendered nature of clothing. She made sculptural pieces and unwearable garments that confounded expectations and disrupted assumptions about beauty, sexuality and wearability.

As with all Wakefield Press art books, this volume is beautifully produced and is a delight to hold in the hand and explore. The hardcover book will be available from Signal Point Gallery throughout the exhibition, and at a range of good local and Adelaide bookshops.

Background Information: As a visual artist Collett’s work is held in numerous State and Regional Galleries in Australia including the Art Gallery of SA, Museum and Galleries of NT, Museum of Arts and Sciences (Sydney), Victorian State Craft Collection, Ararat Gallery TAMA, and Mildura Regional Gallery.

The exhibition continues at Signal Point Gallery until Sunday, March 23.

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