APW George Collie Memorial Print Award recipient

With profound gratitude to the Australian Print Workshop, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been awarded the 2020 APW George Collie Memorial Print Award.

"The Australian Print Workshop has administered the APW George Collie Memorial Award on behalf of the Collie Print Trust since 2014. The Australian Print Workshop is delighted to have this opportunity to recognise important and lifelong contributions to fine art printmaking. The annual Award presentation is accompanied by an exhibition of the recipients’ work in the APW Gallery".

The 2020 George Collie Memorial Print Award exhibition will also honour the work of one of my printmaking muses, the late Barbara Hanrahan, a selection of whose works are HERE. I’m honoured to have my name linked with hers and distinguished past recipients Alun Leach-Jones and Kevin Lincoln (2019), Graham Fransella and Euan Heng (2018), Kitty Kantilla and John Wolseley (2017), Bea Maddock and Jennifer Marshall (2016), Grahame King and Jan Senbergs (2015) and Rick Amor and Noel Counihan (2014).

The George Collie Memorial Print Award exhibition opens ‪on Saturday ‪13 June 2020.

Image top: Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier (1995, linocut, 65 x 46 cm. Collections: Australian Print Workshop, Vic., National Gallery of Australia, ACT., Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Vic., Monash University, Vic. and others).

Mildred Pierce in the Art Gallery of New South Wales

As I continue grappling with fledgling imagery in the studio, a work from the increasingly distant past has reappeared:

Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier, 1995,
linocut, 65 x 45 cm

Only recently I learned that Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier, a key work from the Film Noir linocuts of the mid 1990s, has been in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales since 2009.

Its primary inspiration was the film Mildred Pierce (1945, directed by Michael Curtiz) which in turn was based on the novel by James M. Cain. The setting has been transposed from its original locale of Glendale in Southern California to my home town of St. Kilda, where I was living when I worked on the series.

Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier is also in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Deakin University and the Art Gallery of Ballarat. It was included in the 2008 touring Survey Exhibition Deborah Klein - Out of the Past 1995-2007 which was curated by Diane Soumilas.

My affection for Film Noir has never wavered. (See February 12 post More Moth Woman Vigilantes on Moth Woman Press Artist's Books and Zines Blog.)