Diena Georgetti
with text by Felicity Coleman

After the chalk text works, Georgetti's work turned to calligraphic 'Chinese ink' drawings. These depict organic and functional motifs with 'Japanese' figures which are predominantly female. Most recently, these works have consisted of small painted boards with 'Oriental' scenes and portraits of beautiful women, which continue her use of fantastic titles: I'd rather be respected by a Bolt of Lightening (1993), The final, unique and absolute substance of the World (1993), A Superstition, A Principle, and an Empowerment to Live (1995).

As the titles of her work suggest, Georgetti is essentially concerned with abstract or metaphysical questions, but she poses these problems without the pretence and authority often attributed to metaphysics. Her orientation might be best explained in terms of the pictorial space which her works employ. Her blackboard pieces and her more recent works use simple formal motifs and gestures to suggest the possibility of a spatial reality, without actually defining it. This pictorial space is derealised, neither simply a physical or psychological space. It is a sensual groundless space, from which a dimensional and representable space might issue and be occupied. In other words, they envelope a groundless or abstract sensation, as if it is a premonition of the pattern of events to come. In this way we could approach the strategy of Georgetti's aesthetic as being akin to those of parable, fable, or allegory. Within such symbolic structures, the pictures don't contain a creed of truth or moral meaning, or an answer to how one should live or think, but rather, they contain a background from which diverse and individual ways of existing might emerge.

Diena Georgetti, That little
animal broke itself, in
desperation to surrender,
acrylic & chinese ink
on canvas, 51 x
40.5 cm, 1997

Diena Georgetti, I have wept
so much here, that I am
touched by my own beauty,
acrylic & chinese
ink on canvas, 51 x
40.5 cm, 1997

Diena Georgetti, We suffer,
and then we call on
unhappiness to help us,
acrylic & chinese ink on
canvas, 51 x
40.5 cm, 1997

Diena Georgetti, Polaris, with capital letters, sculptured the frenzy, acrylic & chinese
ink on canvas, 51 x
40.5 cm, 1997

Diena Georgetti, Not living for
the sake of one's personal life,
guache, chinese ink and perspex
on masonite, 50 x40 cm, 1996

Diena Georgetti, Philosophical
abstraction is a indication of
what might be hoped for, guache,
chinese ink and perspex on
masonite, 50 x 40 cm, 1996

Diena Georgetti, Reconstructing the
physical nature of the world,
chinese white ink, acrylic,
masonite, 40.5 x 31 cm,
1994

Diena Georgetti, The civilisation of
the abstract, chinese white
tempera, acrylic, masonite,
35.5 x
25.5 cm, 1994

Diena Georgetti, Elements marked
by the position occupied,
chinese ink on paper,
36 x 51 cm, 1993

Diena Georgetti, A flash has
illustrated the falling,
chinese ink on paper,
25 x 40.5 cm, 1993

Diena Georgetti, Self-titled,
chalk on masonite,
122 x 91.5 cm, 1993