Wendy Sharpe's House of Ghosts exhibition at Norman Lindsay Gallery features ephemeral wall paintings, oil paintings, works on paper, light installations and more.
The concept of ghosts and the afterlife appears in almost every culture. House of Ghosts explores the intersection of the real and the imagined – the seen and unseen, Imagined figures, spirits, ghosts, memories of people, or some kind of hallucination.
Over 60,000 Australian soldiers were killed during the first World War, out of a population of fewer than 5 million. Norman Lindsay’s beloved older brother, Reg was killed on the western front in France in 1916. Norman was inconsolable. Consequently, he became interested in spiritualism, including the use of a Ouija board to contact his brother, and this created a rift within the Lindsay family.
The tragedy of death during the First World War affected the entire nation. This is not just a story of the Lindsay family but of most families of that time.
Wendy Sharpe imagines Norman walking around his house, in a state of grief and longing.
The theme has a deep connection to Sharpe’s own family background. Her grandmother Bessie and her sister Anne were both psychic and were followers of Madam Blavatsky (1831- 1891), a Russian occultist and philosopher. Great-aunt Anne was a well-known psychic and medium in her day, who gave public readings and performances in Russia and the UK.
