23 March 2006
The Australian-Danish connection will be further strengthened -- this time through art - when a 30-metre painting by Monash University lecturer and fine arts graduate Ann Holt is featured in a major exhibition in Copenhagen.
Ms Holt's Circumnavigating the Island, a 30-metre panoramic oil painting, will wrap around an entire room of the Danish Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle. It forms part of the Australian Visit exhibition featuring Australian artists that is opening in April with Crown Princess Mary.
Ms Holt said the massive landscape painting should have strong appeal to Danish audiences as it includes the D'Entrecasteaux Channel -- the area where Princess Mary grew up.
"I now get to share these heart-felt paintings - of a very beautiful, special, quiet place - in a castle on the other side of the world," Ms Holt said. "For me the really exciting thing is that I get to show my interpretation of the Tasmanian landscape to an international audience."
Ms Holt completed Circumnavigating the Island as part of her Masters of Fine Arts at Monash. The painting, made up of 30 panels, surrounds the viewer, taking them on a journey around the shoreline of northern Bruny Island, which lies off Tasmania's east coast, south of Hobart.
The scale and impact of the painting attracted large audiences when it recently toured regional galleries in Australia. It was exhibited in the international arts festival 10 Days on the Island in Hobart and featured on the ABC's Arts Show as part of a profile on Ms Holt's work as an artist.
Ms Holt lectures part-time at Monash University's Art and Design faculty in Melbourne and spends extensive periods living and painting on Bruny Island. She also runs an art program in St Kilda for Aboriginal women in drug and alcohol recovery.
Circumnavigating the
Island will be shown along with works, including one of Princess Mary, from the National Portrait Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in the Australian Visit exhibition. It will also feature the Sydney Opera House designs of renowned Danish architect Jorn Utzon.
Ms Holt said she was honoured to be part of the exhibition and will travel to Copenhagen for the opening on 7 April.
"I'm really thrilled to be representing Australia in this way," she said. "It is interesting that this big circumnavigation painting will now circumnavigate the globe."
Australian Visit will run for four months, From 7 April to 31 July, at the Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen.
For more information contact Ms Ann Holt on +613 9534 8587 or Ms Melissa Marino, Media Communications +613 9905 2085 or 0437 121 978.
Photographs of the artwork and the artist are available. Ann leaves for Denmark on March 31.
| 
