IT seems you can’t keep our “CityNews” writers down. Our theatre writer, Joe Woodward, is  busy directing his original play “Our Lady By The Beach Over The Sea,”  music writer Ian McLean is busy with his band and the CAT Awards and now art writer Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak has curated “Bad Girls: 20 witness 1000”, opening tomorrow at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. 

It’s a scary thought, especially when you realise that the 20 are among Canberra’s most formidable artists – Alison Alder, Vivienne Binns, Jacqueline Bradley, Mariana del Castillo, Fiona Davies, Cherylynn Holmes, Stephanie Jones, Mandy Martin, Brenda Runnegar, Erica Seccombe, Jane Barney, Rachel Bowak, Julie Bradley, Julia Church, Anna Eggert, Catriona Holyoake, Deborah Kelly, eX de Medici, Bronwen Sandland and Ruth Waller.

Beginning in 1981, Wawrzynczak says in an essay deriving from the doctoral studies of CCAS, successive waves of women artists associated with the Canberra Contemporary Art Space have expressed the changing nature of feminist concerns.

Bad Girls are everywhere, she notes.  “They’re our grandmothers, mothers, sisters daughters and aunts…they’ve painted, printed, postered, sculpted and photographed.”  In short, she argues, they are our heroines.

Among the more seminal works is Alison Alder’s paper bag screenprint, “Even a man can do it” (1981)   shown in “Bill Posters appreciated”, the opening exhibition at the Bitumen River Gallery back in Manuka.

Wawrzynczak has assembled a group of really bad girls exhibiting what she threatens will be “provocative,” “rollicking,” “fearless and fearsome” art.

The opening tomorrow will feature Bronwen Sandland’s one-off performance, revisintg  her love affair with public knitting; and a performance from the band called – you’ve guessed it – “Bad Girls.”

“Bad Girls: 20 witness 1000,” at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House Arts Centre, 55 Ainslie Avenue Braddon, opening  6pm Friday, February 8, runs until March 16,  Tuesday to Friday 11- 5  and  Saturday 10-4.