Teelah George
(b. 1984, Perth. Lives and works in Melbourne)

Teelah George is an artist with an ongoing interest in material culture. Drawing on historical records and visual art, she often uses found materials, collections and archives as a point of departure in her practice, which spans painting, installation and a more recent focus on bronze and fabric-based works.

Clock (a second, a second second, a third), 2019–22, is George’s largest-scale work to date, inspired in part by the NGV Collection, in particular the abstract bronze sculptures of Australian artist Norma Redpath. With Clock, George subverts conventional hierarchies of the two principal materials in use, positioning the historically monumental medium of bronze in a supporting role to the textile elements, which in turn borrow their palette from the greenish patina of tarnished metal surfaces. Peppered in fingerprints from the wax moulding process, the bronze structures appear just as visibly handcrafted as the embroidered fabric, toppling historical ideas of gender, permanence and monumentality embedded in each material. Constructed over three years, the work is both a measure and abstraction of time, borrowing its name from Polish poet Wisława Szymborska’s 1995 poem ‘View with a Grain of Sand’.

George completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, in 2007. Recent solo exhibitions have included Laree Payne Gallery, Hamilton, New Zealand (2022); Neon Parc, Melbourne (2019); Gallery 9, Sydney (2020, 2018); Orexart, Auckland, New Zealand (2017); and Bus Projects (2015). Her work is held in several collections, including Artbank, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the University of Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, City of Joondalup Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Macquarie Bank Collection, Monash University Collection and the National Gallery of Australia.