Geelong Grammar School Residency - a final studio visit

   

My time in the Geelong Grammar School studio is now just a fond memory, albeit one that will linger on. In this post I step inside for one last visit, if only a virtual one, and hope you’ll join me.

During the residency my time was equally divided between painting and printmaking. I set up the printmaking table directly inside the the studio entrance and my painting table at the opposite end.

 

Second from the top, above left, and top left in the more detailed view below, is a previously carved block, part of Illustrated Women, an artist book in the making. My intention was to use this and other pre-carved blocks to demonstrate hand burnishing techniques to the students.

To its right is the first linocut design completed during the residency. Made for a major group exhibition and print exchange next year, the block is ready to begin cutting. In fact, I’d intended to complete the carving while I was here - until the Muse decided to pay me an unexpected visit.

In the foreground of the table are my three most recent works, shown in various stages of progress. None of these were previously planned. Progress views of the blocks centre and right were featured in my last post. They are intended for a collaborative exhibition, The Artist’s Garden, a Goldfields Printmakers project. In September 2022, two works from each of us will be exhibited in Bristol as part of IMPACT 12, a international print symposium held biennially in various parts of the world. The Artist’s Garden will also be exhibited in Australia (details to follow). Being exceedingly time poor, I’d initially declined to participate in the exhibition. But the Geelong residency gave me what I’d previously lacked: time and the headspace to recognise that there was indeed a place in my work - and my schedule - for it. Moreover, the two panels for IMPACT 12 have provided the impetus for an ongoing series that may also develop into an artist book. A third panel (foreground left) is currently in development and others will follow in due course.

Below: a detailed progress view of my work for next year’s print exchange and group exhibition. 

Everyone I met during the residency, from the Principal to the students to everyone else, was warm, welcoming and genuinely interested in what was unfolding in the studio. People of all ages stopped by to talk about the work.

I particularly enjoyed my sessions with the art school teachers and their students. Directly below is Gen, snapped on the last day of my residency. A student from her group was examining my Moth Woman Vigilantes lino blocks, made several years ago, when she noticed one one of them bore an uncanny resemblance to Gen.

Among the things I’ll miss most are the early morning chats with Lucy before classes began for the day. 

Working with her colleague Sharon, AKA Shaz (pictured below) was also a joy. 

Unfortunately I never got a photo with Peter Bajer, Head of Visual Arts, who I probably spent the most time with. What an extraordinarily kind, thoughtful and considerate host he was. I’ll really miss joining him for morning tea in the staff room and in the cathedral-like dining hall (affectionately referred to as “Hogwarts”) at lunchtime. Every day he would come to collect me, ensuring I took proper breaks. Peter and his wife Iga looked out for me throughout the residency, and were marvellous company - it’s mainly thanks to them that I was able to settle in so quickly. 

Early in the residency, Andrew Ryan took a series of photos for the school’s archives and has kindly sent them through to me. One of his portraits of me is now on the school website. You can see it HERE. It’s an honour to join the list of luminaries who have gone before me, and in August, my partner, Shane Jones, will be among them!

A small selection of Andrew’s photos are below. Also in the photos are are a delightful group of students from one of Lucy’s classes.

The sun may have set on my residency, but besides a swag of happy memories, there has been much to take away with me: new works, the promise of new directions, and a world of new beginnings.

Geelong Grammar School Residency - The Art School Apartment

For the last two weeks, the Art School Apartment at Geelong Grammar School was my home away from home. Yesterday evening I returned to Ballarat, but I’ll always look back on the residency as one of the happiest, most productive times I’ve ever spent, despite its relative brevity. My only criticism is that the time flew by way too fast!

The following views focus on the residency apartment, which eventually became an extension of my work space. Photo credits for the first two views: Shane Jones. 

In August 2022, Shane (pictured in the third view below) will be the school’s next artist-in-residence. What a treat he has in store for him.

The apartment had special significance for me, as it was the residence of distinguished Bauhaus artist Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack (1893-1965) between 1942-1957, the period he served as Art Master to the school. As an undergraduate printmaking student in the early1980s, reproductions of his woodcuts were among those I studied when I taught myself to make linocuts. It was a thrill to see several of the originals on the walls of the apartment. 

As the weather became increasingly cold, Dr Peter Bajer, Head of Visual Arts, encouraged me to work on my linocuts in the coziness of the art school flat. In the second week of the residency, when winter had really set in, I got into the habit of taking the blocks to the apartment at the end of the school day, developing my designs during the evenings and early mornings before returning to the studio.

In recent years, I’ve been investigating the work of Arts and Crafts Movement artist, designer and educator, May Morris (1862-1938). My protagonists’ body decorations (see below) are based on details from The Heavens Declare…, a panel designed and embroidered by Morris in the first decade of the last century (exact date unknown).

Below: the lino blocks ready for carving. 

Further details of this project and the residency will feature in future posts. 

Insects in art

Pictured above: progress views of my current work, Apiary, snapped in my Ballarat studio shortly before its move to the residency studio at Geelong Grammar School. 

Directly below is the work that inspired it. Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, c. 1470, by an unidentified Swabian artist, is a painting that has intrigued me ever since I happened upon it in the National Gallery, London, in 1993. 

At the time the work was made, Swabia included parts of Southern Germany, Switzerland and France. The artist is unknown, as is the identity of the sitter, although we can still discern something of her background. Her jewellery and opulent costume indicate wealth and the text in the top left hand corner, "Geborne Hoferin," translates as "born a Hofer." 

The fly that has apparently landed on the sitter’s otherwise immaculate headdress is a striking  example of trompe-l'œil (French for “deceives the eye”). It lends a decidedly unsettling element to what would otherwise have been a charming, but conventional portrait. In art, flies have long served as symbols of mortality. Nevertheless, the painted insect could be regarded as nothing more than a visual joke, intended solely to trick us into believing a fly has actually landed on the painting. When viewed in combination with the sprig of Forget-Me-Nots held by the sitter, however, the work seems more likely to be a posthumous portrait, commissioned by wealthy patrons in remembrance of the sitter.

Shortly after first discovering the work, I began an Australia Council residency at the Cite International des Arts in Paris. During my three month stay, I made two works in homage to Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, a small linocut, followed by a more detailed oil pastel drawing. From memory, it was fairly close in scale to the painting on which it was based. I included most of the original compositional elements, with one notable exception. In order to personalise the work, I replaced the fly with a bee, a symbol of more personal significance. Deborah is elicited from D'vorah, a Hebrew a word meaning "bee", the symbol of prophecy in Ancient Greece. When combined with the sprig of Forget-Me-Nots, the print and drawing became personal expressions of homesickness. 

Apiary recalls this painting, evoking a similar era and reinstating the bee emblem. It’s a particularly personal work, albeit in an entirely different context, and I was at pains to paint the bee as convincingly as possible. Only after I’d finished, did I realise the bee is slightly too large in scale.

Lately I’ve had some lively conversations with staff and students during my residency at Geelong Grammar School, where I’ve been making the finishing touches to the work. Chris, a staff member who is also a bee keeper, admired my bee, which was somewhat heartening. When I expressed my concerns that the bee was a little oversized, he replied, “Well, it’s your bee!’ And so it is - so it shall stay just as it is. Thank you, Chris!

On the following day, I was discussing Apiary and its influences, including Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, with a group of students. In an uncanny instance of life imitating art, a fly landed on the subject’s painted headdress, right next to my bee. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to whip out my camera quickly enough before the fly moved on to explore other areas of the canvas. You can just spot it nestled in the darker folds of the painted fabric.

Odalisque

Currently on the table easel in the Residency Studio at Geelong Grammar School: Odalisque, diptych, acrylic on canvas, a work in progress now very near completion. 

Geelong Grammar School Residency: Week 1

Pictured in these views is the spacious, light filled artist-in-residence studio at Geelong Grammar School soon after I’d finished setting it up, with much appreciated advice and assistance from Rupert the technician and department head, Peter Bajer.

The intention was to demonstrate the technical and thematic trajectory of my work over the past 40 or so years through a selection of paintings, relief prints, experimental digital prints and book art. A range of lino blocks, proofs and working drawings are also on show. The two earliest works, a still life and self-portrait, both made in 1982 during my first year at art school, are displayed on easels. 

On the table easel by the far window (see following two views) are my three most recent paintings, still in progress, but now very near completion.

The wooden table directly opposite the painting station (see below) is my printmaking table. Not shown in this view is another work in progress, a small linocut intended for a group show in 2023, now drawn up and ready to begin carving. 

It has been a busy but immensely productive week, filled with work and lively conversations with students, teachers and visitors. The first of my two weeks long residency has flown by. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be here. 

A.I.R. at Geelong Grammar School

 

From next Monday I begin a much anticipated nine-day residency at Geelong Grammar School. My period as artist-in-residence was originally scheduled for 2020, but was placed on hold when the first of the lockdowns began. The residency was rescheduled for 2021, but in the meantime, I got sick. 

Recently the A.I.R. was postponed for a further week when I caught a particularly nasty dose of flu. It’s hard to believe the residency is happening at long last. Most of this week has been spent in preparation and I’m still not there yet. The school is keen for me to show developments in the work. In part, this has involved digging through my disgracefully messy plan drawers and excavating some hoary old works in order to share something of my journey. 

Coincidentally, that’s the title of the humble hand-coloured linocut dating from 1995 that’s pictured above. Heaven only knows what messages are contained in the bottles. 

All of the prints featured in this post were hand-burnished with a spoon, a method which, in my experience, is considerably slower but infinitely more satisfying and far less problematic than printing with a press. 

Top: Journey, 1995, linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.26 cm.

Directly below: a selection of relief prints made during the same period that will also travel with me to Geelong. 

 

Keeper of the Flame, 1995, linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.26 cm.

 

Now, Voyager, 1995, linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.26 cm. 

 Not Drowning… 1995,  linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.26 cm. 

 High Flyer, 1995, linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.26 cm.

 Life Saver, 1995, linocut, hand coloured, 15.24 x 10.79 cm.

A short film of ATTUNED at Nicholas Building Up Late, February 2022

Nicholas Building Up Late, February 2022. A short film by Taylor Beaumont-Whiteley documenting the exhibition Attuned at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, which I had several works in. The project was initiated by City Precinct and facilitated by the City of Melbourne.

Thanks to all of those mentioned above and to Stephen McLaughlan for this copy of the film. For a full screen view, click on the bottom right hand corner of the video. 

Nicholas Building Up Late 2022 took place on Wednesday evening, 16 February 2022.

Attuned ran from January 19 - February 26.

Details of the event and a list participating artists are below.

PRINTED - images by Australian Artists 1942-2020

 

This afternoon a wonderful surprise package arrived in the mail:

PRINTED - images by Australian Artists 1942 - 2020, by Roger Butler, a sumptuous 416-page book published by the National Gallery of Australia. 

My linocut, St Kilda Warrior, 1997, 61.4 x 45.4 cm, is reproduced on page 240.

Images above (clockwise from top left): 

Barbara Hanrahan, Birth, 1986, linocut;

Kate Lohse, 1986, Women’s issues, etching/aquatint;

Diane Mantzaris, The Wedding Present, 1987, lithograph from computer generated image; 

Deborah Klein, St Kilda Warrior, 1997, linocut.

All works collection National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

Over the coming months I’ll be working on several printmaking projects and this exhaustively researched, lavishly illustrated publication will be an invaluable reference. 

Some local press for THE BIG KITTY

Further to my Blog Post of Saturday 27 April 2022, THE BIG KITTY has just made The Ballarat Times. 

To read the article Small film gets big local screening by Fiona Watson (Ballarat Times, Saturday 7 May) click on the link below: 

https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/ballarat/news/small-film-gets-big-local-screening/

Photo credit: Fiona Watson. 

Pictured L-R: Tom Alberts, Shane Jones, Lisa Barmby and Deborah Klein.

Thank you to Fiona Watson for the article and to Lisa for alerting me to it. 

Exhibition Preparation

When you’re preparing for an exhibition at Queenscliff Gallery, you need all the help you can get. And in some cases, not.

In these views, Shane Jones joins the multiple panels of my paintings and wires them. He is “assisted” by Alice, who volunteered her services before I had a chance to close the doors to the room.

Rückenfigur, my upcoming solo show at Queenscliff Gallery, opens on 23 June and runs to 27 August. Full details are HERE.

Between now and then, I’ll be undertaking a residency at Geelong Grammar School. Meanwhile, I’m just about keeping on top of things - thanks to Shane and no thanks to Alice!