BRERETON Janet

Janet Brereton was a leading textile artist, widely celebrated for bringing textiles to the forefront of the Australian arts vernacular. She is best-known for her large-scale brightly coloured macramé tapestries. She used the same technique and 24mm thick rope for all her tapestries. Her artworks were made from knotted cotton rope, tied to an aluminum rod and often appeared as larger-than-life pixelated portrait wall hangings weighing up to 50 kilos each.

In 1969, Brereton and her artist husband Kevin William Brereton (b.1933 - d.2008) established a gallery, studio and tapestry workshop in New Brighton, New South Wales. Here, she actively-produced a tapestry almost every year until she died aged only 59 from polycystic kidney disease in 1991. Her last artwork called Modern Woman in 1991 now in the Powerhouse Collection. This striking portrait of a strong blond-haired woman was dedicated to the young nurses who cared for the artist during her final years suffering from terminal kidney disease and was made to raise awareness of the Australian Kidney Foundation. Adelaide Festival Centre is proud to host an earlier tapestry work by Brereton in the Works of Art Collection, depicting an amalgamated portrait of all the electronic German band members of Tangerine Dream.