THINKING OF PLACE II - further travels

Today’s blog post brings news I’ve been remiss about sharing earlier: the group exhibition, THINKING OF PLACE II, originally conceived for the international print symposium IMPACT 10 in Santander, Spain in 2018, is currently on exhibit at Northsite Contemporary Arts in Cairns, Far North Queensland. The show opened in September and continues to November 7.

Prints being multiples, from today, October 21, and continuing to November 1, the exhibition will run concurrently at Arthaus Contemporary Gallery in Orakei, Auckland, New Zealand. For further information, visit the Facebook page of THINKING OF PLACE II HERE.

Yesterday a review of the exhibition by Ina Arraoui arrived in my inbox - an unexpected and delightful surprise. My contribution to the show, the phemograph Detritus, 2018, pictured above, is referenced in the review. Back in 2018, I was unable to travel to Santander for IMPACT 10. With continued travel restrictions, it’s possible I won’t even get to see the exhibition in any of its subsequent venues, so my thanks and gratitude are extended to Ina for giving many others in the same boat a very real sense of what THINKING OF PLACE II is about.

Ina Arraoui is a New Zealand-based print artist and curator. Her website is HERE.

The introductory paragraphs of Ina Arraoui’s review are directly below. To read the review in its entirety, click HERE. 

Introduction

Although many of us envisage a physical geographical location when thinking of place, it’s more often than not a complex synthesis of feelings and memories that ultimately defines our relationship to a place. Printmaking artist and academic Monika Lukowska argues that notions of place are inseparable from the human experience, referencing geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s theory of “topophilia” whereby place only comes into existence when meaning is attached to a certain location resulting from time spent between the person and the space (2018). The exhibition Thinking of Place II is an impressive cultural exchange project where over 60 artists from 9 printmaking collectives across 5 countries have been invited to make works exploring questions of place. Artists were encouraged to reflect on the relationship between place, memory and time, using a range of traditional and contemporary printmaking processes and techniques, resulting in a rich and engaging conversation, as diverse in perspectives as in the collection’s visual presentation. 

Background to the project

Thinking of Place was initially conceived as a cultural exchange project between five artist groups from New Zealand and Australia. Members of each group had met at the IMPACT 8 Conference in Dundee, Scotland, instantly striking a lasting friendship and giving birth to a trans Tasman collaborative print project.  After a successful first edition of the exchange, which was exhibited in each of the host cities, the organisers decided to continue the momentum with a second iteration of the project to be exhibited at IMPACT 10. In the spirit of the printmaking community, which is marked by a distinctly inclusive, collaborative approach, the project expanded to include four more groups from Canada, Ireland and the UK.  Whether a group is based on a shared geographical location or print studio, each one is committed to advancing printmaking and supporting artists working in print-based media. Collaborative projects such as Thinking of Place give printmakers the opportunity to not only exhibit their work on the international stage but to foster professional and personal connections across the printmaking community, globally. Participating artists have been selected by each group either by invitation or open call. 

Read on HERE.

Some recent events

The Goldfields Printmakers end of year meeting in Kittelty's at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Left: GP Treasurer, Anne Langdon, centre: James Pasakos; far right: Loris Button. 

On Saturday, 1 December, the Goldfields Printmakers held their final meeting for 2018 over an early pre-Christmas brunch at Kittelty's, the Art Gallery of Ballarat's splendid cafe.

After our meeting, the Goldfields Printmakers visited the Arts Academy, where we viewed
  Encounter, our portfolio of prints exhibited in the Open Folio section of IMPACT 10  

In recent weeks, GP founder James Pasakos and GP member Loris Button returned from IMPACT 10, the international print conference in Santander, Spain. Our group exhibited in the Open Folio section and some members, including James and Loris, also held major shows. Other members, including myself, participated in group exhibitions - in my case, Thinking of Place ll.

The meeting was a timely opportunity to share the news of the acquisition of my artist book Leaves of Absence by the National Gallery of Australia. The first archival pigment prints I ever made were for Not Born Digital, the Goldfields Printmakers project created for IMPACT 9 in Hangzhou, China in 2015. They sowed the seeds for a completely new direction in my work that over the following two years culminated in Leaves of Absence and, more recently, the archival pigment print Bell Jar, 2018. (See following image).

Future Goldfields Printmakers shows will be announced in the New Year, once venues and dates have been confirmed.

At Tacit Galleries with my archival pigment print, Bell Jar, inspired by Sylvia Plath's semi-
autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. Photo credit: Shane Jones.

Blarney Books and Art's tenth annual Biblio Art Prize exhibition recently travelled from its home in Port Fairy to Tacit Galleries in Collingwood, where it continues until Sunday, 16 December. Two of my works, Bell Jar, an archival pigment print, and Progeny, a unique artist book, are finalists in this year's Biblio.

The photos directly above and below were taken at Tacit Galleries on opening night, Wednesday 5 December.

An installation view of my one-of-a-kind artist book Progeny, currently at Tacit Galleries as part of Biblio Art Prize 2018.
Progeny, which was highly commended, takes Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein as its point of departure.

In other recent news, on Friday, December 7, Shane Jones and I attended the Australian Print Workshop Artist's Party, thrown by the APW as a thank you to all the artists who donated print editions to IMPRESSIONS 2018, its biennial fundraising exhibition.

As in previous years, we were treated to some memorable musical interludes. Guitar duo Graeme Drendel and Rick Amor were a marvellous 'warm-up' act to the fabulous Press Gang, comprising Jazmina Cininas, Julie Forrester, Simon White, Martin King, Adrian Kellett and Graeme Drendel. Printmaking luminaries, all of them, and damned fine musicians too.

L-R: APW Director Anne Virgo, Rick Amor, Martin King and Graeme Drendel

The legendary Press Gang, from L-R: Jazmina Cininas, Simon White, Julie Forrester, Adrian Kellett, Martin King
 and Graeme Drendel

As if this weren't enough, there were also prizes. I never win door prizes, raffles and suchlike, so couldn't have been more surprised when my name was one of those drawn from a hat. I won a linocut 'hamper' that included a lino block of the exact size I'm using for a current project, a tube of Charbonnel (my favourite ink), a baren and a fine set of linocut tools. Coincidentally, Shane won an identical prize. We're both feeling rather chuffed.

Directly below are just some of the many prints on view in IMPRESSIONS 2018. My linocut, Prelude, is on the bottom row, centre.

For further details of IMPRESSIONS 2018, including a complete list of participating artists, go HERE.

The show continues to 16 February, 2019. To check the APW's hours over the Christmas break, go HERE.