painter, printmaker, sculptor and teacher, was born at Coffs Harbour, NSW, on 3 June 1962; 1982-86 Diploma of Art (Printmaking) Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga NSW. In May 1990 Franklin met five Tiwi women artists who were completing a month’s residency at their first printmaking workshop at Studio One in Canberra, where Franklin had worked for several years as a printmaker, illustrator and community artist. None had previously worked with linocuts or lithography, although most had experimented with screenprints and some etching, so she was invited to spend three years with Munupi Arts on Melville Island as Arts Co ordinator at Yikikini to teach printmaking skills to the community.
Between 1987 and 1997 Franklin held seven solo exhibitions, mainly with Shade of Ochre Gallery, Darwin, and aGOG, Canberra. Her work has been included in numerous group shows, including the Queanbeyan City Art Award (First Prize 1987), the Mornington Peninsula Print Prize (1988, 1990) and the Fremantle Print Prize (1990); two travelling exhibitions with Tiwi women artists from Melville Island, Munupi Dreaming in 1991 and Ngingingawula Murrakapuni, Ngingingawula Jilamarra in 1992; the 1995 Asialink touring exhibition to Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, Changing Places: Cross Cultural Art from Australia , and the National Women’s Art Exhibition Bias Binding: Women’s Art Register 1975-95 at the National Gallery of Victoria, both in 1995.
Our endangered species 1990, colour screenprint, was included in Earthly Delights: a group exhibition about the environment at aGOG from 18 August to 6 September 1990. From July 1996 until c.2000 Franklin lived on a block 120 km south of Darwin in the remnants of prehistoric forest, which she was helping restore. Her exhibition Continuum (aGOG March-April 1997), inspired by Dr Jean Liedloff’s book The Continuum Concept (USA, 1977), consisted brightly-coloured paintings and tiny black-and-white etchings printed by Chris Denton at Studio One, Canberra, including a self-portrait as 'The Sculptor’ (JK copy) working on the third component of the exhibition, a large luxuriant multi-media installation (mainly lush red triffid-like objects with hands reaching out for jewels), The Yearning . Early in 2001 she had a sell-out exhibition of small jewel-like rather Moorish looking paintings at Helen Maxwell Gallery.
IMAGE: Yikikini 1991, woodcut (ill. Imprint 27/3, spring 1992, cover), depicts Aboriginal women in the Yikikini Women’s Centre at Pularumpi working at printmaking with their white female teacher, i.e. Franklin. She described the women’s centre as 'a long windowless tin shed which retains the intense heat of the tropical sun, cooled only by three of the six ceiling fans that still work.’ Her teaching influenced various artists, including Fatima Kantilla (see ATSI biographies). Most, however, work with rich colour and decoration, as does Franklin herself in her paintings, screenprints and sculpture.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
