Winning form at races
ARTIST Camille Fox enjoyed spending time at the racetrack while researching for a new exhibition of paintings.
“I went to several race meetings with a childhood friend and we really loved it,” explains the Sydney-based artist who likes to poke fun in her works of art.
“There’s plenty of curves, cleavage and high heels. Each painting is an opportunity to share in life’s merriment,” she says.
The exhibition of 20 artworks is called Well Heeled and opens at Sydney’s Frances Keevil Gallery on October 26.
Fox was born in Egypt and left with her family in 1956 for Israel, before settling in Australia.
In 1965, she studied art at the East Sydney Technical School and her cartoons appeared in the Australian Jewish Times, the forerunner to The AJN in Sydney.
Several of her major exhibitions have focused on an Egyptian theme, including a 2006 exhibition at Melbourne’s Jewish Museum of Australia titled Nostalgic Glimpses of a Bygone Era and four similar exhibitions in Sydney.
“Some of the paintings are based on a combination of personal stories that my grandparents told me and a bit of artistic licence to fantasise what it would have been like,” she explains.
Although born in Alexandria, for many years Fox identified more strongly as French than Egyptian, until her husband Tony encouraged her to travel to Egypt while visiting their son in Israel, and it inspired her artistic passion for Egyptian-themed paintings.
However, this year Fox decided to capture the excitement and humour of the spring racing fever in her Well Heeled exhibition.
While they are social portraits that portray the carefree glamour and vibrant colour of Sydney, they have universal appeal.
“Its an affectionate look at racing – we are all laughing together,” she says.
Fox started in January on the paintings and says she is often in her studio from 9am-5pm.
The Well Heeled exhibition is at the Frances Keevil Gallery, 28 Cross Street, Double Bay, Sydney from October 26 to November 11. Enquiries: www.franceskeevilgallery.com.au.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PHOTO of Camille Fox’s The Wind of Heaven is That Which Blows Through a Horse’s Ears (detail).
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