Biography

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Dr Ursula Betka is an iconographer, artist, art historian and writer who was born and lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has studied broadly and has an enduring love of art history and its practice. Ursula completed a four-year bachelor of art, design and education, then spend twelve years teaching art and photography in secondary schools throughout Victoria. During this time, she continued to paint in a variety of media. while continuing her teaching career, Ursula returned to part-time study and completed an Honours degree in Art history at the University of Melbourne. Having won an Australian post-graduate scholarship in 1991, she embarked on a MA and Ph.D on the history and context of medieval painting, and was invited to tutor at the University of Melbourne. It was at this time that Ursula explored the theology and painting method of Byzantine Icons and Italian sacred images on wood panel. After finishing her Ph.D in 2001 she published, painted and lectured in Art History and Iconography at the University of Melbourne for fourteen years, followed by seven years at Latrobe University in Bundoora.

 

In 2002 Ursula also founded the Elesmere School of Sacred Art, which includes the teaching of workshop practices in Iconography, Italian tempera painting and gilding on wood panel, Illuminated manuscripts and Glass Painting and gilding. Ursula also taught studio practice courses at Adult Education in Melbourne for a number of years, including Byzantine Icons, Italian Painting and Gilding; and Illuminated Manuscripts.

 

Her studies led her to the land of Syria and the Levant with her archaeologist husband, Chris, where they soon founded Sanctuary Tours. Many wonderful years were spent leading study groups to Historical Syria and Jordan (1996-2010); Etruscan and Medieval Italy; Historical Turkey, Crete and Sicily (2012); and Ancient and Medieval Greece in 2015.

 

Ursula is an exhibition artist and iconographer who has also completed a number of significant commissions. In 2005 and again in 2018 her Icons were represented on the Australian and International Christmas stamp series commissioned by Australia Post. An Icon of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop resides in the chapel of the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre Chapel, East Melbourne; And from 2017-2020, a large commission of St Joseph, with eight Storied Panels is revered at St Joseph’s Melchite church in Fairfield, Melbourne.

 

Her work is represented in Public Collections such as the Australian Catholic University (ACU) Art Collection of Australia, and Australia Post in Melbourne, Victoria. Her most recent solo exhibition - Icons & Sanctuary in 2017, donated all profits to providing airfares for the arrival of Syrian refugee families to Australia. She has continued to be involved with the new Syrian community now living in Melbourne, in particular through Icon Painting workshops and wonderful friendship that have been forged over the last four years, Sandra Agobian being one of the most valued

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Public Icon Commissions

 

2022. The Sedes Sapientiae with the Four Marist Founder Saints, Aquinas College chapel, N. Adelaide.

2021. St Marcellin Champagnet, Marist Provincial, Sydney.

2019-2020.  The Holy Family, Marist Brother’s Chapel, Fitzroy North, Melbourne.

2018.   Australian and International Christmas stamp series. Paintings on wood. Australia Post.

2017-2022.  St Joseph Icon with 8 storied panels. St Joseph’s Melchite church, Fairfield.

2012.   St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre Chapel, East Melbourne.

 

Icon commission in Progress

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2022. Mary, Star of the Sea, Marist Star of the Sea Province. Marist Order of Australia, Sydney.

 

Icons in Public Collections

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2019.   Australian Catholic University (ACU) Art Collection of Australia.

2018.   Australia Post, Melbourne, Vic.

 

Exhibitions - solo

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2017. Icons & Sanctuary (for asylum seekers in Vic.). Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre, East Melbourne.

 

Exhibitions - group

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2019.   Sacred Art & Sanctuary (for Syrian Refugees), curator and exhibitor with the Elesmere School, MMHC, Melbourne.

2015.   Visions of Beauty. Experience of the Sacred. ACU, Fitzroy, Melbourne.

2014.   Icons of Christmas, Boom Galleries, Newtown, Geelong.

2012.   Sacred Art in the Crypt. Curator. Paintings in tempera with 4 participants, St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne.

2011.   Illuminate 11. Paintings in tempera and gold with 4 participants, Kingston Arts Centre, Moorabbin, Melbourne.

2011.   A Window into Heaven, Icons, Monash University Clayton Rel. Centre, Melbourne.

2010.   Icons. St Matthew’s Anglican church, Cheltenham, Melbourne.

2009.   Icons and Devotional Images. Curator and participant with members of the Elesmere School. St Mary Star of the Sea Crypt, West Melbourne.

 

Select Publications

 

Books

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2022-3 Painting and Gilding in early Renaissance Italy: Techniques and Approaches Publication pending.

 

2022    Byzantine Icon Painting: method and history – Maison De, E-learning Platform

 

2006 Editorial committee: Byzantine Narrative. Papers in Honour of Roger Scott, Eds. J. Burke, with U. Betka, P. Buckley, K. Hay, A. Stevenson & R. Scott, AABS, Byzantina Australiensia 16 (Melbourne 2006).  (Editor of Art History papers).

 

2002 Marian Images and Laudesi Devotion in Late Medieval Italy, ca.1260-1350. Ph.D dissertation, The University of Melbourne, 2001, (UMI Michigan, 2002).

 

Chapters or other entries in Books and websidte

 

2020 -2022 Columban Catholic Art Calendar - Art Guides

https://www.columban.org.au/catholic-mission-files/pdf/Calendar/2020/columban-calendar-art-guide-2020-web2.pdf

2021 ‘Laudari – Hymnbooks for lay people’, in The Art of Praise. Italian Illuminated choir books 1300-1450, pp.153-189, Melbourne, 2021 (ed. Jenny Zimmer).

2020    ‘St Anne with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child’ and ‘Les Petites Fleurs de St Francois Woodcut Prints’, Catalogue entries in Caroline Field (Managing Ed.), ACU Art Collection. A new perspective, ACU, 2020.

 

2018  ‘The Dormition of the Virgin altarpiece from the Kerry Stokes Collection. Origins and meaning’, in Anne Dunlop (ed), Antipodean Early Modern. European Art in Australian Collections c.1200-1600, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.

 

2010  ‘Medieval Art and Legend and the Arthur Boyd ‘St Francis’ Tapestries’ (with Margaret Pont), in Constant J Mews & C. Renkin (eds.) Interpreting Francis and Clare of Assisi. From the Middle Ages to the Present (Broughton Publishing, Melbourne 2010), 368- 391.

 

2009  ‘The Laudario of Sant’Agnese in Florence: Compagnia, Carmelites and the Community of Saints’, in Imagination, Books and Community in Medieval Europe, proceedings from the Exhibition Conference, SLV 29-31 May 2008 (Macmillan, Melbourne, 2009), 163-171.

 

2009  Illuminating a Medieval Manuscripts, in Bernard J. Muir (ed), Inside the Scriptorium 1. Inks, Paints & Quills, Ductus Evellum Scriptorium Series vol. 3 (The University of Melbourne, 2009).

2006   ‘Icon and Narrative. Commemorating Saint Francis in Assisi’ in Byzantine Narrative. Papers in Honour of Roger Scott, Eds. J. Burke, with U. Betka, P. Buckley, K. Hay, A. Stevenson & R. Scott, AABS, Byzantina Australiensia 16 (Melbourne 2006), 303-319.

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