printmaking graduate - rmit universitymams.rmit.edu.au/a471lbl08znb1.pdfthe 2010 printmaking...
TRANSCRIPT
PRINTMAKINGGRADUATEEXHIBITION 201024 Nov- 11 Dec
RMIT University School of Art
red gallery157 St Georges RoadFitzroy North Vic 3068www.redgallery.com.au
FOREWORDThe 2010 Printmaking Graduate Exhibition RESIST plays with the notions of process, materiality and politics. This year’s graduates display a wide range of concepts and mediums that participate in current debates of gender, globalization, identity and sustainability. The comprehensive training and education in printmaking media in conjunction with written and spoken expression is ongoing, with pedagogical renewal made possible by the diverse professional team of staff to whom the students have access during their program: Jazmina Cininas, Richard
Harding, Dr Ruth Johnstone, Peter Lancaster, Rebecca Mayo, Megan McPherson, Jonas Ropponen, Heather Shimmen and Julia Silvester are all highly motivated practicing artists and educators, with excellent and committed technical support from Rob Dott, Andrew Gunnell and Kylie White.
The School of Art’s Printmaking Studio is committed to fostering conceptual and technical rigor while combining historic and contemporary art practices through studio theory and application. This combination of approaches offers
students an excellent base for entry into the general art community. In the course of the degree program our graduates’ art education is diversified and enhanced through Art History & Theory, the Artists In Residence program (AIR) and complementary studio practices from across the School of Art. Thank you to all the School of Art staff who contributed to the diversity and richness of the Printmaking studio.This catalogue is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the Printmaking studio and the Communication Design studio from the School of Media and
Communication, made possible through the encouragement of Marius Foley, reinforcing the flexibility and cooperation between different schools and studio areas of the University. The ‘Annual Printmaking Fund raising Auction’ has once more funded the Graduate Exhibition and catalogue; its success is thanks to the incredible effort of staff, graduating students, and our fabulous auctioneers: Andrew Tetzlaff and David Nolan. Each graduate cohort participate in exchange print portfolios that foster
connections with other educational institutions nationally and globally evidenced by an undergraduate Print Exchange Project with Curtain University in Perth, National Art School in Sydney and the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba and the Graduate International Print Exchange in partnership with the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland. The Printmaking studio wish all the graduates the very best for the future and look forward to viewing their next artistic endeavours in the professional arena. Printmaking Studio Coordinator
School of Art
richard harding
GRADUATESALANNA CLARKSONANNA TOPALIDOUBROOKE WALDEVOGELCARLA HOBBSEMILY LANCASTERJENNIFER VENTZKEKATE HILLKATHRYN GRIBBINKIAH ROBINSON RETTERKIRRALEE WISHARTLINDY YEATESMARI ADAMSMARRIANNE MITAKISNICOLE MACDONALD (HONS)RHI LIESCH (HONS)VIVIENNE HAYESWILLIAM ERICKSON
ALANNACLARKSONSacrifice recognizes the non-correspondence between the continuous and the discontinuous, yet it also recognizes the necessary bond between them. The bond is embodied in the sacrificial victim. The victim fills the gap between the discontinuous and the continuous. But precisely because he fills it, he must be destroyed.(Roberto Calasso: The Ruin of Kasch, 1994)
The aspect of loss related to sacrifice is a notion I find haunting. Sacrifice means ‘to make sacred’. Sacrificial offerings can range from fruit and flowers to personal treasures. However, the most powerful offerings are those of animal and human lives. In my work I attempt to honour, or ‘make sacred’ that which is ‘offered up’ through imagery that uses literal reference points to describe a more symbolic version of sacrifice through suffering temporary loss for a greater gain, a necessary relinquishment of something that is valued and loved.
In your memory, Sophrosyneetching, 44cm x 32cm
ANNATOPALIDOUThe night sky is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, peephole after peephole - A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.(Sylvia Plath)
In a craft of print media, my work circumnavigates the metaphysical world. It is at once sentimental and nihilistic.
From In my beginning is my end serieslithographs, 19cm x 28.5cm
BROOKEWALDEVOGEL- I have nothing to declare but my
indifference.- If Claudia Schiffer married Brains from
The Thunderbirds she would become Claudia Schiffer-Brains.
- I think being a celebrity is the best most interesting job in the world.
- I thought Roberta looked really nice at Carl’s funeral.
- Lara Bingle really should do something about her hair.
- Why is Carla Macguire the luckiest woman on earth? Because she sees less of Eddie than the rest of us.
Eddie Everywheregouache on paper, 28cm x 19.5cm
CARLAHOBBSThe project I am working on is based in gender performance and centres around the reversal of male and female roles. I use digital prints and live video performance to communicate the feelings and emotions in the characters that I am wanting to portray in my works. I am taking a broad historical approach into the search for my identity and who I have taken after, who I look like – my father or mother, who’s personality I am more like. Taken from the vantage point of the dominant male role, I use costumes from the colonial era to find the ancestor characters from which my background descends.
Through His Eyesstill from video, variable dimensions
EMILYLANCASTERConstants. After asking myself what my own constant is –what it is that I can depend on- my faith and then people, I became interested in investigating what it is in people’s lives that they depend on. I believe that everyone has a constant that they count on, whether they realize it or not. Through asking questions like “What is your constant?” and “What is it that you can always depend on to get through the day? ” I have been able to document their answers through both photography and having them write it down themselves.
But one of the most important outcomes of this project was making people really think about what it is they depend on. It has been such a privilege, as well as an adventure, to step into people’s lives and find out what it is that is most depended on.
Tell me your Constantscreenprints, 12 x 17cm
JENNIFERVENTZKECharacter Animatic is about the charismatic, enigmatic and enchantment in religion and what we believe is religion. Drawing on my Christian background I explore goodness and evil, not in the Bible but in daily life and the altars society prays at, that is, the altars of consumerism, using the icons of beauty and the religion of hair in my work. This project is less a judgement and more an acceptance of the life of a woman in the 21st century.
Good-Evil Bookartist book, 36.5 x 64cm
KATEHILLConsidering themes around the land, seasons, drought, and decay, and through a sensitive use of the etching medium, my work aims to consider the removed, vulnerable, and at times uncanny relationship of contemporary society to the non-human world.
Distantetching, 37cm x 66cm
KATHRYN GRIBBINMy landscape-based work explores the role that memory plays in how we see the world around us and how our environment is capable of evoking both a physical and emotional response. My intention is to produce a series of mood landscapes that evoke a strong sense of unease and disquiet within the viewer, whilst at the same time being strangely seductive; imagery which explores the sublime and the darker, more mysterious side of nature.
Still, Heredigital print, variable size
KIAHROBINSON RETTERThe Theatre of Human Form is an exploration of the emotionally charged language of the body. I am enchanted by movement through the body and its surrounding space and the dreamworld that can be created through the poetry of the body. I have taken this idea, that the body can be used as a language for self-expression and have used it as a tool to explore and convey female sensuality. I often draw inspiration for my work from the body.
Life drawing is a clear example of this as I am lulled into a meditative state by the process and I often find myself delighted at the character and intense expression formed when the body is deliberately or accidentally morphed beyond its natural form. The mask is another dominant motif in my work. I use the mask as a way to explore the barrier between the personal and private world and it simultaneously references the history of performance and theatre.
Untitledetching, 34 x 13cm
kiah [email protected]
KIRRALEEWISHARTPlants have become a major subject for my practice, and are equally important in my life. My experience of living in a modern city has been stimulating in the extreme, which I balance by filling my studio space, living areas, and bedroom with plants. I use what comes to hand: cups, jars, bottles, tins, and the plants themselves come from nature-strips, parks, gardens, many of them considered weeds. I have used the subject of plants in my work for their universal appeal and necessity to our physical, spiritual and emotional needs.
I depict plants as symbols of joy, love, congratulations, death, beauty, condolence, balance, and in their quick death a reminder of the consequences of each action. My choice of recycled materials and low-impact printing processes reflects my belief that artists have a responsibility to be environmentally aware and to engage with contemporary life through their work.
Feel centred soon!screenprint and chinagraph
variable dimensions
LINDY YEATESConsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these(Matthew 6: 28,29)
I am interested in the need for pause and reflection amidst the frenetic pace of contemporary life. Meditation on the infinite design and regenerative promise of nature, serves as my inspiration and subject matter. Found objects and old papers inform this work, encouraging the reflective gaze to consider the beauty
of ordinary things, to explore the silent stories found in their marks, stains and signs of aging. The richness of my Christian heritage is referenced using designs inspired by past craftsmen who embedded their spiritual understanding of life and loss in the stone columns, stain glass windows and carved woodwork of old churches I visited in Melbourne and Adelaide. “Meditation” is offered for contemplation, encouraging a closer examination of the spiritual in the everyday.
Meditation #4etching, watercolour, ink; 54.5cm x 35.5cm
MARI ADAMSStories and our imagination enable us to connect with the unknown and mysterious. Growing up, folktales, family stories and historical references have inspired fantasies about my family history. My work explores my connections to three islands, Australia, Sicily and Lewis, where my family comes from. I combine real and imagined histories with imagery of native flora and fauna from these places to create objects and their stories. These hybrid objects are personal symbols of heritage and metaphors for universal ideas of migration and transformation.
I seek to honour traditions of botanical illustration and photography, and to mirror explorers’ fascination with discovering and documenting the unknown.
Cynana acanthiumwoodcut, 20cm x 30cm
MARRIANNE MITAKISThe focus of my work is based on endangered species that are indigenous to Australia. The ‘Ninox Strenua’, commonly known as the Powerful Owl, is this country’s largest owl and is unfortunately under threat due to the destruction of its normal habitat. By printing my images on ephemeral materials and isolating the animal against an active but sparse field, I am seeking to express vulnerability and impermanence.
Impending Stormetching, 110cm x 78cm
NICOLE MACDONALDI use the imagery of deep sea creatures as a metaphor to explore the theme of unconventional beauty and the irrational fears of the abyss that are ever present in the human psyche. I try to capture the anxiety people tend to feel with the hidden, the unseen and the unknown. I create etchings that play with people’s perceptions of the fantastic by drawing on the otherworldliness of these bizarre creatures from the abyss. When the animals of the deep are revealed, it is possible that we may be both repelled and intrigued.
Through presenting the seductive and mesmerising aspects of these animals in prints I am aiming for a bewildering combination of fear and beauty.
The lure of the Southetching, 59.2 cm x 21 cm
RHI LIESCHI explore aspects of the artists’ book as a mode of creating non-linear narratives, driven by unconscious thought patterns such as dreams and daydreams. I am interested in creating objects that have assumed narrative qualities, yet neglect to show progress in a logical manner. By presenting visual interpretations of my own unconscious thoughts, I am referring to aspects of shared human experience, where individual manifestations are varied and abstract.
In doing so, I form a series of seemingly unrelated objects and situations in order to create forms of familiarity and unfamiliarity within a single object.
From Dream Diary seriesartists books, variable size
VIVIENNE HAYESThe myriad textures and surface patterns of urban decay are my primary visual source for capturing the material aspects of the world and the ever present influences of nature that interact within a constructed human setting. Although these patterns are a poignant reminder of the impermanence of solid, tangible objects, I am interested in the idea that all substances degrade into their raw forms or basic elements and return to the environment. The inclusion of landscape features in these images is a reflection on both the origin and destination of all matter. While not dismissing emotional and spiritual responses to reality,
scientific explanations for the workings of nature have provided me with an inspiring perspective on many concepts of the world. Decay for instance does not lead to obliteration but is part of a process of transformation and a necessary step towards regeneration.
The Journey Back To Dustetching with monoprinted chine colle
48 cm x 38 cm
WILLIAM ERICKSONI am constantly fascinated and frustrated by humankind’s refusal to move away from our unsustainable consumer lifestyles. My work explores the sustainability of our addiction to fossil fuels and the damage that their extraction and use is causing to our planet and its ability to support life now and in the future. We know that our consumption levels are unsustainable due to both the limited nature of the availability of fossil fuels and the permanent damage caused by their use yet we make minimal effort to move away from our reliance on them.
A 1 million barrel a day habitetching, 65 cm x 45 cm
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAND THANKSThe RMIT Printmaking Studio continues to forge and strengthen fundamental links with industry based organisations such as the Print Council of Australia, Australian Print Workshop, Firestation Print Studio, Lancaster Press, Melbourne Artist Supplies, Melbourne Etching Supplies, Neil Wallace Printmaking Supplies and Magnani Papers through an ongoing dialogue that enhances and encourages continued research in many areas of contemporary print practice.
The Printmaking Studio would like to thank all of them for their continued support over 2010. The ‘Australian Print Workshop Collie Print Trust Emerging
Victorian Printmakers Scholarship’ was awarded to MFA graduate Jessica Wong, BA graduates Eloise Linklater and Jack Whitmore were recipients of the Encouragement Award, enabling them to utilize the access studios and support staff throughout the year. John Domjan was awarded the ‘Firestation Print Studio Award’ for a solo exhibition while Pam Jackson was awarded the ‘Firestation Access Award’, with Annelise Scott receiving the ‘MES Award’ and Andrew Keall the ‘Lancaster Press Residency’.
A special thankyou to Spicers Paper for their generous support in providing the paper for this catalogue.
EditorsRuth JohnstoneKathryn GribbinLindy Yeates
DesignersDaniel BrokstadTara De Pasquale
