Bryony Dalefield (born 1951) is a New Zealand photographer and visual artist based in Wales. Her photographs are held in the collections of the

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions. Set be ...

and the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...

Early life

Dalefield was born in 1951 in

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; , colloquially known as Palmerston or Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatū Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manaw ...

, New Zealand, and grew up on a farm in the Manawatū region. In 1976, she travelled to the United Kingdom to work. During the 1990s she lived and worked in the village of Wye on the English-Welsh border.

Education

Dalefield studied photography at the

Elam School of Fine Arts The Elam School of Fine Arts, founded by John Edward Elam, is part of the University of Auckland Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at the University of Auckland. It offered the first Bachelor of ...

in Auckland.

Career

After graduating from Elam, Dalefield worked as a photographer in New Zealand. Her photographs were featured in ''New Art: Some Recent New Zealand Sculpture and Post-Object Art'', edited by Jim Allen and

Wystan Curnow Wystan Tremayne Le Cren Curnow (born 1939) is a New Zealand art critic, poet, academic, arts administrator, and independent curator. He is the son of Elizabeth Curnow, a painter and printmaker, and poet Allen Curnow. Biography Curnow was born ...

in 1976. She began making quilts around 1979 after seeing an exhibition in the UK in which quilting was presented as an artistic medium. Her quilts have included motifs such as eyes, hands, scissors and trees, along with

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

-inspired designs. Regarding works presented in her solo exhibition ''Provided with Eyes,'' she said that her quilting

has taken me to various countries and through stages in my life. I think they reflect that, to me they a story about a journey. ..What I like is the size. Quilting is done on a larger scale and designed to be wrapped around the body. All my work is larger than me.

Dalefield works mainly with tartans (a nod to her Scottish ancestry), chintz, calico and glazed cotton, fabrics that are all prone to fading. She describes herself as a quilter "greedy for pattern". Notable exhibitions: * ''No Man's Land: Extending the Boundaries of Women and Art in Aotearoa'' at

Dowse Art Museum The Dowse Art Museum is a municipal art gallery in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Opening in 1971 in the Lower Hutt CBD, The Dowse occupies a stand-alone building adjacent to other municipal facilities. The building was completely remodelled in 2 ...

, Lower Hutt, 1993. This exhibition, curated by Laurence Hall, celebrated the centennial of

Women's suffrage in New Zealand Women's suffrage was an important political issue in the late-nineteenth-century New Zealand. In early colonial New Zealand, as in European societies, women were excluded from any involvement in politics. Public opinion began to change in the ...

, and featured work from 47 artists known for their innovations in craft and materials. Dalefield presented a work titled ''Do we stand on their shoulders or do they ride on ours?'' * ''Provided with Eyes'' at

, Lower Hutt, 1994. For this exhibition, Dalefield brought to New Zealand a collection of 33 quilts from an exhibition that had first shown at the

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery is the public art gallery of the City and County of Swansea, in Wales, United Kingdom. The gallery is situated in Alexandra Road, near Swansea railway station, opposite the old Swansea Central Library. History The ...

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

, Wales. The exhibition was then shown at other galleries around New Zealand (including Auckland Museum) before heading back to the UK for a national tour. Dalefield wrote a text to accompany the exhibition, also titled ''Provided with Eyes''. * ''Contact'' at Michael Lett Gallery, 2013. This exhibition presented fifty black and white photographs by Dalefield, documenting the 1974 performance of Jim Allen's work ''Contact'' at the

. * ''Cusp'' at Ruthin Craft Centre,

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, Flintshire to the east, Wrexham to the southeast, Powys to the south, and Gwynedd and Conwy to the west. Rhyl is the largest town, and Ruthi ...

, 2017. This group exhibition presented works from seven Welsh artists whose works mingle art and craft. Other artists included Claire Curneen, Paul Emmanuel, Nigel Hurlstone, Christine Mills,

Beth Elen Roberts Beth may refer to: Letter and number *Bet (letter), or beth, the second letter of the Semitic abjads (writing systems) *Hebrew word for "house", often used in the name of synagogues and schools (e.g. Beth Israel) *Beth number, a sequence of infi ...

and Sean Vicary. Written works: * ''Provided with Eyes'' (1994), a work written and designed to accompany the exhibition of quilts of the same name. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dalefield, Bryony 1951 births Living people New Zealand women artists People from Palmerston North Quilters