Pigment prints in progress

Step 1: 

After coating both sides of the Eucalyptus leaves with a thin layer of clear sealer, the silhouettes are painted on.

Step 2:

The embellished leaves are photographed and a series of filters applied, layer upon layer. I made dozens of digital proofs before arriving at the following images. The next step will be to proof them with master printer Luke Ingram at Arten.

The leaf in the image below was especially pleasing to work with. Thanks to some inspired chomping from my collaborator, a Eucalyptus tip bug, I was able to follow the contour of the altered leaf to create the shape and angle of my subject's head.

The leaf used in the following work is Thumbelina-sized, so I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it has adapted to a relatively extreme upscale (more about this in my next post). The completed archival pigment prints will be roughly A3 in size, possibly a little larger.

A new year and a new leaf of a new book

Leaves of Absence pages, together with a fragment of the linen with which
the book's specially designed box will be bound  

The first few months of 2017 are dominated by book-related projects, so naturally this is reflected in my current studio practice. Pictured above is a progress view of Leaves of Absence, an unbound, limited edition artist book that has been two years in the making. The boxes that will house the book are currently under construction. They will be covered with the same linen as the sample upon which the pages rest. The completed book will be limited to an edition of 10, plus one artist proof.

For additional page views and information, visit Moth Woman Press HERE.

Happy New Year

2016 is a leap year, so whatever your resolutions may be, you will have 366 days to realise them. Whether your goals include turning over a new leaf or you decide to stay just as you are, may you rise to every challenge in a year filled with happiness, creativity and good health.

A clear work top ready for the New Year and new beginnings. (My workstation at Abbotsford in Melbourne).

Double Memory

I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of the doppelgänger in all its shapes and forms. Through the years it has made repeat appearances in my work, most recently in the current Leaves of Absence series of digital prints.

Pictured below are selected developmental views of Double Memory, beginning with the hand painted eucalyptus leaf that in its original, unembellished form originated on the forest floor at Newstead).

Deborah Klein, Double Memory (2015, digital print). Work in progress; dimensions yet to be determined).

Leaves of Absence: Memory #3 Revisited

Memory #3, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

Since returning from Hobart I’ve been substantially reworking selected images from the current suite of digital prints (now titled Leaves of Absence), applying the modest store of technical knowhow that I’ve haphazardly accumulated in an effort to simplify and refine them.

A handful of the prints were already resolved and these won’t be altered. They include Memory #1 and Memory #2, the works that recently traveled to IMPACT9 in China.

Memory #3, however, was seriously overworked. Countless hours of experimentation, trial and error later, the final result is shown above, followed by a mere handful of the many working proofs I produced, alternatively building up the layers via a series of filters and paring some of them back, before arriving the final state. The image in the bottom right hand corner of the grid below shows the original artwork, a silhouette painted with acrylic paint onto a Eucalyptus leaf. 

For more about this series and to see the original version of Memory #3, click HERE.

Memory #3: selected progress views

A New Leaf

Memory #1, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

Memory #2, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 19.5 cm

Goldfields Printmakers, the regional printmaking group I belong to, have been invited to present a portfolio at the upcoming international print conference, IMPACT9, in China. The topic of this year’s conference is Printing in the Post-Print Age: Critical and Creative Methods in the Context of Contemporary Art and Society - in short, digital printmaking - which few of us, including myself, are entirely familiar with. After some trepidation, I decided to take on the challenge, using my iPad to make the works. Visitors to this blog and its sister blog, Moth Woman Press may be already aware of my occasional forays into iPad art, but this is the first time I’ve pushed it to this level.

It was decided that each of our group would make two works focusing primarily on China’s historic link to the Victorian Goldfields. To give the images in this post additional context, here is a slightly extended version of my artist statement:

There were virtually no Chinese women on the Australian Goldfields. For the thousands of Chinese men who flocked there, separation from their families was a cause of deep sadness. At the height of the gold rush, there were almost 3000 Chinese immigrants in the Victorian Goldfields town of Newstead alone. The forest floor is still pockmarked with holes, enduring evidence of its gold mining history.

The Eucalyptus leaves in these works were sourced in Newstead. The silhouettes are emblematic of the women the Chinese miners were forced to abandon, and in some cases would never see again.

In taking on this project, I sought a way of linking it to my own practice and some of the concerns it aims to address. The images are intended to suggest old photographs that are faded, scratched, creased or otherwise degraded by time.

Memory #1 and Memory #2, the digital prints pictured above, are the works that will travel to China.

19th century photograph of Chinese miners aboard a stagecoach, Newstead, Victoria 

As mentioned above, a selection of the Eucalyptus leaves gathered on my initial visit to Newstead were the basis for this project. Silhouettes of Chinese women were painted onto the leaves with drawing ink and black acrylic paint. These were photographed with my iPad, after which, successive layers were applied via numerous iPad apps, all of which needed to be capable of saving the images as high resolution files at 300 dpi.

Original artwork: ink and acrylic paint on Eucalyptus leaves

Memory #3, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

Memory #4, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 19.5 cm

Memory #5, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

Memory #6, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

Memory #7, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 19.5 cm

Memory #8, 2015, digital print, 29.5 x 22.5 cm 

I was delighted with the print quality of my first efforts and look forward to further exploration of this exciting medium in the near future.