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Scholarship – 2010:
Printmaking (93309)
Examples of Candidate Work
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OUTSTANDING SCHOLARSHIP
This submission in printmaking admirably demonstrates that a simple and close observation of subject matter can provide ample opportunity to develop concepts with increasing sophistication and complexity. The choice of birds as subject is certainly not an unfamiliar one at this level. However what distinguishes this candidate’s treatment is the ability to conceptualize beyond the literal. This investigation appears to have come about through an interest in the art historical notions of ‘vanitas’ and this has been developed through an interest in museology. The ruminations on the ‘death and life’ of nature through the lens of the museum specimen provide a framework for various explorations of pictorial space. In this way the ‘bird’ as subject easily becomes a metaphor, taking on human characteristics in a surrealistic manner for talking about the random interactions of individuals.
The workbook draws upon analysis of a diverse range of artistic precedent both historical and contemporary. Celebrating traditional references ranging from William Hogarth, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin to the classical surrealism of Max Ernst, to the contemporary British sculptors, Jake and Dinos Chapman and the New Zealand painter, Bill Hammond, provides the student with a scaffold to draw together various threads of research in order to fashion their own personal journey. A distinctive rationale and aesthetic sensibility has been developed and informs decisions made on the portfolio panels.
A high level of technical fluency and a sophisticated awareness of compositional devices appropriate to style and genre has been demonstrated throughout the portfolio. This culminates in panel 3, where the candidate has produced extremely accomplished multiple plate dry-point prints that utilize subtle changes in monochromatic colour and various devices of framing that provide tension around notions of containment and protection.
Overall the most distinctive characteristic of this submission is this candidate’s consummate capability with a variety of printmaking processes and technologies. They have skillfully combined silk-screen printing, soft ground etching and dry point etching, solvent transfer printing, paper embossing and intaglio, without losing any sense of pictorial coherence. In the best conservative tradition of printmaking, the subtle soft changes in tonal contrasts to the increased dramatic effects of deep blacks against white are arrayed throughout this submission.
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SCHOLARSHIP
The strength of this submission is demonstrated by a willingness to take risks in the expressive use of gestural qualities that can be harnessed within print media and processes. The portfolio establishes its premise at an early stage and demonstrates a systematic investigation of concept and exploration of pictorial concerns and media use. The first panel explores scale and a variety of image making. The notion of exploration and challenge to printmaking process is clearly evident in this panel. Different print surfaces and appropriate drawing ‘into’ and ‘over’ clearly signal later development within the portfolio. Further printing of different plates over existing prints has been used with purposeful intent without lapsing into needless repetition. The expressive quality and thus raw appearance of the work is in keeping with the urgency of communicating the perils of lung disease.
Panels 2 and 3 further this investigation but become clearer in terms of resolve and purpose.
Where text has been introduced, it reinforces the conceptual intent but in so doing is also considered in terms of the pictorial concerns. Clear decisions have been made with the prints that communicate the decay and dissolution of the image – obviously in keeping with stated premise of the concept. These concerns are deliberate and can be seen through the use of colour, surface/texture, the layering and bleeding of images. The ‘tarry’ effect of the print surfaces appears to reflect the notion of residue associated with lung disease and the effects of smoking. The often deliberate ripping and tearing of the surface of the prints themselves further emphasize this.
The increase of print scale has been clearly accounted for in the studies and written text within the workbook. Another aspect that establishes the success of this submission is the interplay between a variety of scales within production. The deliberate use of large areas of mass is counter-balanced by finer pictorial images, e.g. the understanding of line and mass. This investigation has been synthesized in later works where figure/ground elements show successful engagement. Panel 3 suggests that the programme undertaken has potential to continue to develop and reinvent.
The workbook reinforces the portfolio investigation and may also operate as an independent entity. Rather than substantiating only what is shown in the portfolio, it contains a whole additional series of possibilities. One of the noteworthy characteristics of this Scholarship submission is that the workbook operates as an independent drawing tool.
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