Jacqueline Fahey

In January, in a crowded Christchurch Art Gallery auditorium, Jacqueline Fahey, celebrated feminist painter and author, known for her forthright, outspoken take on life and art, left the audience spellbound with candid flashes of brilliance. Something was in the air that night . . . was it a sense of (re)claiming? I suspect so.

Fahey’s long career is well documented. Born into a well-educated Irish-Catholic family in Timaru, she survived Teschemakers convent school near Oamaru, and went on to study at Canterbury College School of Art under Russell Clark and Bill Sutton. Rebellious, she baulked at the gentility of Christchurch. Now, decades later, she is back where it all began with a remarkable first solo exhibition in the city.

Informed by her socialist stance, Fahey’s talk was one of tantalising snippets: her upbringing, her mother’s musical abilities, marriage to noted psychiatrist Fraser McDonald, their three daughters, and comments on her paintings. At home, indoors, as a busy mother is where Fahey found inspiration; her family ‘needed to be part of it’ and her paintings needed to ‘tell the truth’.

The talk was held in conjunction with the exhibition , a careful selection of 25 titles, mostly from the 1970s, a crucial decade in which Fahey hit her stride;