Recent adventures in printmaking

Pictured above: the lino block for Cossodes lyonetii Moth Woman. Pictured below: a trial proof pulled this afternoon, followed by an enlarged view of the Cossodes lyonetii white moth, originally sourced from the CSIRO website. (The mask area of the linocut will be hand painted in similar colours).

The completed edition of 33 will be part of Eventide, a portfolio of linocuts curated by Rona Green. Works from the portfolio will be exhibited at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in May, 2016. Full details of the portfolio and exhibition will be provided nearer the time.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm intending to take an extended break from linocuts in order to concentrate more fully on other facets of my work, most notably the ongoing series of Homo-insecta paintings and the Leaves of Absence digital prints, one of which is directly below:

Roundel (work in progress); digital print

Thumbnails of selected archival pigment prints - including alternative variations of two of the works - are shown on the proof sheet below:

NOT BORN DIGITAL - GOLDFIELDS PRINTMAKERS at Ararat Regional Art Gallery

Ararat Regional Art Gallery

This afternoon Shane and I attended the lively opening of the exhibition Not Born Digital - Goldfields Printmakers at Ararat Regional Art Gallery. The works were originally shown in an open folio presentation at IMPACT 9, the international printmaking conference at Hangzhou, China in September. This is their Australian debut. My works Memory #1 and Memory #2, the first digital prints I’ve ever made (but as it’s turned out, certainly not the last) are part of the show.

My digital prints Memory #1 and Memory #2

Pictured with my first ever digital prints (I've since made at least 20)

The exhibition was launched by Dr. Loris Button, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Education and Arts, Federation University Australia - and fellow Goldfields Printmaker. (Loris also has two works in the show).

Jimmy Pasakos (foreground right) filming Anthony Camm, Director of Ararat Regional Art Gallery,
who is introducing Dr Loris Button prior to her opening address

From left: James Pasakos, Rosemary Eagle (centre) Melissa Proposch
and Carole Wilson

I had some great chats with some of some of my fellow Goldfields Printmakers:

Pictured above, back row, from left: Director of Ararat Regional Gallery Anthony Camm with 
Goldfields Printmakers Loris Button, Melissa Proposch, Anne Langdon and David Pudney

Front row: Goldfields Printmakers Leonie Auhl, Rosemarie Eagle and Jimmy Pasakos

The following is from ARAG’s press release:

Not Born Digital – Goldfields Printmakers

22 October – 6 December 2015

Ararat Regional Art Gallery

The Goldfields Printmakers is a group of artists based in the Ballarat and Central Highlands (or Goldfields) region of Victoria, which includes Ararat, who share a specialization in printmaking. The group is facilitated by artist, James Pasakos of the Arts Academy, Federation University, Ballarat.  Artists belonging to the Goldfields Printmakers have considerable empathy, respect and appreciation of the impact and influence of history in the region. The current practice of printmaking in this region of Victoria relates very strongly to its past in the Goldfields. Artists have embraced contemporary methods as new stories are created using both old and new printmaking techniques in the post-print age. This exhibition considers the heritage of printmaking dating from the mid-nineteenth century, with reference to different cultural contexts in and around the Goldfields region. An outcome of this and other research will result in an exhibition of prints that ties in with the International Conference IMPACT9 Hangzhou, China in September 2015. Ararat is notable as the only Australian city founded by Chinese migrants who discovered gold at the Canton Lead in 1857. The site of this discovery is now home to the Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre. Some of the work created for the exhibition will provide a link to this history of Chinese settlement in Ararat and elsewhere in this part of Victoria.

Ararat Regional Art Gallery

Town Hall,

Vincent Street,

Ararat, Victoria

T: (03) 5352 2836

E: gallery@ararat.vic.gov.au

Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 10am - 4.30pm

Weekends and public holidays 12pm-4pm

Closed Good Friday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day

I took a number of installation views of the exhibition, but unfortunately they didn't do it justice. For those who can't make it to the show, individual works are best viewed in the Not Born Digital catalogue, which can be downloaded HERE.

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.