Keeping Score explores the intersection of the female form in art and sport. Women in art and sport are rarely united in art history, yet they share parallel historical narratives that reveal an undaunted tenacity fuelled by drive and determination.
In homage to the women’s game, Keeping Score celebrates the female form as an active subject of strength, stamina, endurance and physicality as a counterpoint to the historically conventional objectified feminine form as a passive, soft receptacle of desire.
To this end, tin score plates ‘keep score’ and account for key dates and numbers of the women’s game in Australia along with paintings that draw upon the emotional intensity of the colour field and process-driven action painting of the abstract expressionists. The small tin score plates once used to score regional matches represent the players as ghosts inside the numbers; once lost to AFL history.
Outside the numbers however, their bodies are united in monochromatic colour – no longer passive observers, but now active participants to be seen and counted.
1915 - First-ever recorded women's game was in Perth, WA - Oil on tin, paper on ply - 30x70cm
1917 (First recorded game under lights, a women's game in Kalgoorlie) - Oil on tin plate, paper on board - 30x70cm
1987 (Date WAWFL established) - Oil on tin plate, paper on ply - 30x70cm
1988 (First games of the new WAWFL league: Innaloo, Carlisle, Melville, Mt Lawley) - Oil on tin plate, paper on ply - 30x70cm
2010 - AFL commissioned a report into women's football - Oil on tin plate, paper on ply - 30x70cm
2013 - Exhibition matches played across Australia raised the profile of footy - Oil on tin plate, paper on ply - 30x70cm
The Granny - Painted in real time while watching the 2021 AFLW grand final over four quarters - Synthetic polymer and charcoal on board - series of 4 panels 40x40cm
Heretic - Oil on Canvas - 190x140cm
Keeping Score, Her Rules, Her Game (From bottom up: growth in players (R) and teams (L) from 2016 to 2021) - oil on tin plates, paper on board - 120x90cm
Keeping Score, WA Participation (From bottom up: growth 1988: 300, 2012: 4,650, 2013: 22,599, 2016: 72,388, 2019: 109,647) - oil on tin plates, paper on board - 150x120cm