Malaysia-born, Melbourne-based Weng-Ho Chong is an artist, designer, writer and poet, and design director of independent publisher Text Publishing. In 2023 Chong released his own book Portraits, with 300 drawings and paintings of culture makers including his friend, author Michelle de Kretser (b. 1957). Born in Sri Lanka, de Kretser began her career as an editor for Lonely Planet before turning to fiction. Her fourth novel, Questions of Travel (2012) won a string of awards including the Miles Franklin Literary Award. De Kretser took out the Miles Franklin again in 2018 for The Life to Come, joining a select group of authors to win the prestigious award more than once. For this portrait, Chong included symbolic references to de Kretser’s life and work, noting: ‘The non-naturalistic compositional device, the fusion of abstraction and figuration, are nods to the post-modernist mode (evident in de Kretser’s writing). The bookstack names writers who have affected her, including Patrick White, who takes his place as a tutelary spirit, top left. The dog shape below quotes Deborah Williams’ etching used on the original cover of de Kretser’s The Lost Dog.’
Gift of Michelle de Kretser 2015. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Weng-Ho Chong
Michelle de Kretser, Geography and History 2013 by Weng-Ho Chong is a tall rectangular mixed media acrylic painting on linen measuring one hundred and ninety-eight point five centimetres by one hundred and one point five centimetres. It's a portrait of Michelle de Kretser, author, who was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was fourteen.
Michelle's figure occupies the lower quadrant of the painting from the crown of her head, to below her knees, standing amidst various layers of abstract and realistic elements. The predominant background colour is citrus yellow with an undercoat of pale grey that is visible in parts. This flat painted background is interspersed with pinkish white panels, which are outlined and streaked in red orange and grey, bright emerald green horizontal and vertical lines divide the composition, and at the same time function as shelves and frames.
In the top left framed on three sides by green lines is a small portrait of the right of Patrick White as an old man. He has a severe expression on his craggy face, with mouth turned down and deep-set eyes glaring into the distance
The image is smudged and blurred like a charcoal sketch or an old photograph.
On the right, from the top to halfway down is a black silhouette of a palm tree, large jagged fronds form an uneven cartwheel shape which has been stencilled due to its fuzzy edges. A round white circle, which is either a moon or a bleached-out sun, shimmers through its branches. An overlay of fine green horizontal lines gives the impression that this scene is being partly viewed through an open venetian blind. On the left half way down a green horizontal line serves as a shelf for a stack of books of russet brown, royal blue and emerald green.
Names printed on the spines read from the top down: E. Bishop; Chekov; White; Hazzard; de Kretser; Crompton. Below this is a small image on a screen have an open laptop. Close up it's a photograph of three people adrift in a choppy sea. They appear to be in distress, one in a yellow life jacket has the eyes closed, while the other two, one in an orange life jacket are holding on to each other and looking toward something.
In the lower left corner again stencilled in black as a silhouette of a partially visible dog, three legs a tail and perhaps a nose which has been cropped by a diagonal green line.
In the foreground on the right, Michelle is portrayed as almost life size and is framed on all sides by green lines including a diagonal green line that cuts across a figure below her hips. She is slight in build and stands with their right hand on her waist and her left upper arm obscured from view, facing to her left. Her short dark hair is parted on one side and pulled back into a spiky top not at the back of her head, with strands of hair falling over a forehead and temple. Her complexion is a warm peachy tan, and she has thick dark eyelashes and peaked eyebrows.
Her eyes are downcast and her red brown lips a slightly parted, and her left hand is held up near a chin with fingers pinched together, giving the impression she's deep in thought.
Silver rings adorn the third finger of her left hand. Michelle wears a white smock dress with short sleeves. The dress has a low flat collar and deep neckline and is done up with large round buttons down the front. Her hand on her waist pulls the fabric inward and creates folds running down to a deep gaping pocket on the side facing outwards. The dress comes to above the knee and bunches in the hem over the slim legs in dark brown leggings. Behind her legs there is a section of vertical deep blue wavy lines, reminiscent of rippling water.
Audio description written by Sally Dawson and voiced by Emma Bedford
Michelle de Kretser (1 portrait)
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