Joy Hester
Woman with hen
Joy Hester studied at Brighton Technical School before attending
the National Gallery School, Melbourne (c.1937-1938). Painted with
a brush loaded with Indian ink this work possesses a sense of
spontaneity that would have been difficult to impart with oil
paint. Hester saw the external environment as being less
important than her own inner emotions, and this work is
characteristic of her style which sacrifices detail for
expressiveness.
This watercolour is one of a series of works dating from the
artist's sojourn at Avonsleigh in 1955 - a country property where
poultry was being raised for the Christmas market. It is tempting
to think that the protective, fearful feelings of the girl for her
hen, emphasised by the child's haunting eyes which are focussed on
the bird cradled in her arms, is imbued with the artist's own sense
of vulnerability. For the last decade of her life Hester was
battling with Hodgkin's Disease.