The outstanding career of Dora Chapman began early - even whilst still a student in Adelaide. Throughout her life she worked as painter, silk-screen printer, potter and art teacher and her impressive work encompassed landscape, portraiture, still life and interiors.

Chapman was concerned with the making of social realist art where subject matter floated as if in no particular location. Her images of people were severe, honest, realistic and frequently unflattering as she sought to represent the truth. There was a sexual ambiguity in her figurative work - features were strong, with short hair and clothing suitable for either gender, conceivably inferring that the artist could be a young man. Perhaps this is not surprising, for in those times women were given little support and often no place to exhibit in a realm dominated by men. As a member of the Studio of Realist Art (SORA), all exhibiting members were men and she was relegated to the position of social secretary.

Dora had such a strong integrity of approach to her work and this demanding attitude also infiltrated her whole approach to life and relationships.

- Prue Venables

The framework and aesthetic principles of my creative life developed early through intense and frequent contact with my aunt, the artist Dora Chapman. Growing up in my grandmother’s house - Dora’s childhood home - I was surrounded despite her absence, by her paintings and object collections. The beauty and sophistication of this situation captivated me, incited my curiosity and imagination and prompted me to seek her out. I realised even as a young man that her presence was to be of great importance to me.

As a young schoolgirl, Dora Chapman won a scholarship to the South Australian School of Art and thus connected with a long and important lineage of artists such as Ivor Hele, Nora Heysen, Horace Trennery. She worked with passion, drive and commitment, eventually forging an important and respected artistic career.

The years spent in close daily contact with Dora formed for me an intense period of artistic study, providing a conduit to another world, creative, sophisticated, and with different expectations and possibilities to those generally embedded in my provincial surrounds. Here grew a new framework for my life.

Dora taught me to be meticulous, committed, thoughtful, skilful and experimental in my explorations. A life of observation and making followed, with workings across a variety of channels including stained glass, building and garden design, and eventually leading to ceramics. There is something about the finesse and quality of porcelain as a material that provides me with an instrument of expression that now facilitates the true manifestation of a lifetime of learning.

During one period, decades ago, I worked with Dora on the prints in this exhibition, scrupulously placing the layered colours and absorbing her instruction. Such memorable exploration of colour is reflected now in my ceramics work. It is an exhibition crossing decades of time and meticulous learning.