Charles Nodrum Gallery snaps up avant-garde ace

Charles Nodrum Gallery has revealed a new addition to its stable, with abstract artist Yvonne Audette now amongst the Melbourne gallery’s lineup. Audette’s practice spans decades, with the artist having exhibited widely across Europe and America during the peak of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s and 60s.

The artist has spent a lifetime experimenting with various styles and approaches, though she is most well-known for her eloquent abstract paintings, having famously stated that “art is a language – not a demonstration of a particular idea”.

The artist originally studied at the Julian Ashton School, before furthering her education in the USA at the New York Arts Students’ League and the National Academy of Design’s School of Fine Arts. She was well acquainted with the American icons of the era, such as Robert Motherwell, Theodoros Stamos and Franz Kline, and then expanded her network while living in Europe by meeting with Arnaldo Pomodoro, Lucio Fontana, Emilio Vedova, and Cy Twombly. In the words of Chris Wallace-Crabbe, “she has had the quickness of foot to learn from the growing points of culture all around the world… yet the result is not some uncertain melange but an idiom that is entirely her own”.

After a busy period exhibiting across Italy, the artist returned to Australia in 1966, finally settling in Melbourne. Since then, a range of Australian institutions have exhibited her work, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art, and the Ian Potter Museum. She is also the subject of a monograph titled Yvonne Audette: Paintings and Drawing 1949-2003.

The artist’s debut with Charles Nodrum Gallery will be as part of their presentation at Melbourne Art Fair.