Native Sydney photographer Robyn Beeche documented seemingly opposing worlds: the post-punk, new romantic fashion and music scenes of 1980s London, and Hindu ceremonies held in the Indian pilgrimage town of Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh.
Beeche became renowned in London for her ground breaking photos of painted bodies, transforming the body into a canvas and a site of dynamic exploration. Collaborating with counter-culture personalities Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood, Leigh Bowery and Divine, Beeche was drawn to personalities who were fascinated with the possibilities of physical transformation. Employing imaginative makeup and sophisticated lighting, bodies were fragmented, distorted and transformed into sculpture. Regularly visiting India in the mid-1980s at the peak of her career proved life-changing with Beeche settling in Vrindavan permanently in 1992.
For the next three decades Beeche captured both the serenity and dye-drenching ecstasies of Indian religious rituals. The colour saturated week-long Holi festival in Vrindavan reminiscent of Beeche’s experimental work with makeup artists.
Robyn Beeche: A Life Exposed, Teaser
Directed and produced by Lesley Branagan,
52min
EXHIBITIONS
INDIA
1995 Living Culture of Vraj
NCPA Piramal Gallery, Mumbai
1997 Vraj: Krishna’s Playground
IGNCA New Delhi
2005 Fashion Faces
Kriti Gallery, Varanasi
2011 Fashion Face
BMB Gallery, Mumbai
AUSTRALIA
2007 Fashion Face
RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
2008 Krishna: Love & Devotion
NGV, Melbourne
2009 Fashion Face
Chaffers Gallery, Wellington NZ
2010 London Calling
Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2012 Robyn Beeche’s INDIA
12 Mary Place Gallery, Paddington
2014 Fade to Grey
Black Eye Gallery, Darlinghurst
2015 Robyn Beeche a Retrospective
Black Eye Gallery, Paddington
2016 Black Eye POP up Show
Fortyfive Downstairs, Melbourne
PERMANENT COLLECTION
55 works at National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
HOME
ABOUT
Robyn Beeche : Visage to Vraj
by Stephen Crafti
Published by Images Publishing
Foreward by Zandra Rhodes
Purchase
Anne O’Hehir, curator at the National Gallery of Australia, stated that:
Much of Beeche’s work of the 1970s and 1980s exists in its own place between fashion photography and art photography. For me there’s an interesting tension in her work between the image as decoration and the image as portraiture – particularly in the images of famous figures – Leigh Bowery, Sir Roy Strong, Andrew Logan.
Beeche’s inspiring life story has been told in Stephen Crafti's book Visage to Vraj and Lesley Branagan's revealing documentary film A Life Exposed – Robyn Beeche: a photographers transformation, which was first broadcast on Australia's ABC TV in June 2013. The film reveals how Beeche, at the centre of London’s high fashion world, finds that fame and success are no longer enough and traces her intrepid move to India to rediscover herself. Beeche sadly passed away in 2015 at age 70 and is survived by her sister Gai. In 2016 the Robyn Beeche Foundation was established with the purpose of maintaining and promoting Robyn Beeche’sphotographic archive in order to provide charitable support to emerging artists and cultural exchange.
PUBLICATIONS
UK
1984 The Art of Zandra Rhodes
Zandra Rhodes and Anne Knight
Published by Jonathan Cape
1986 Quant on Make-up
Mary Quant
Published by Century Hutchinson
1987 Time Alive
by Leslie Kenton
Published by Conran Octopus, London
1993 Arts & Crafts of India
by Nicholas Barnard
Published by Conran Octopus, London
INDIA
1995 Govindadeva-a Dialogue in Stone
Edited by Margaret Case
Published by IGNCA, New Delhi
1996 Evening Blossoms
Published by IGNCA, New Delhi
2001 Celebrating Krishna
Published by SCPS, Vrindavan