Investigating the Gorge Part 2

Artist in Residence, Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania

Its the second week of my residency, and I've become familiar with the gorge, its flora and fauna, the people and the CBD of Launceston.  Walking and riding my bike are my only way of exploring the area, and luckily the weather has been mild and quite sunny.

My days have been spent walking through the gorge, then returning to the cottage to work on my art.  I also have joined the LINC library so I can research the history of the gorge and the cottage.  At the library I found an interesting book 'Paper Tiger' by Carol Freeman which looks at how colonial imagery of the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) contributed to its elimination by humans and eventual extinction.  Its given me a few ideas about how visual imagery can impact on the lives of animals and plants.

At the Queen Victoria Art Gallery in Launceston CBD I viewed an exhibition of etchings and linos by Udo Sellbach.  The distorted human imagery in his work is quite confronting, but I was impressed by his artist book "And still I see it", displayed alongside a digitised version of the book I could view with a touch screen.

I've got a few artwork ideas that I'm working on based on my residency.  One of the major projects is an artist book, inspired by Udo Sellbach's book.  My artist book will use the polaroid photos that I've been taking as I've explored the gorge, looking at both natural and man-made features, for example, the rocks, the river, signage, rubbish, graffiti and people. I also plan to include text from heritage reports and newspaper articles that I've found at the library.  I've got some wonderful scans of a report on the 1929 floods, the language used in the report is quite poetic with flowery descriptions, not as formal as we would expect from documents produced by current government committees or tribunals.

I've also been creating a series of collagraph plates using ferns I've found on my walks.  I've glued the plant material to mat board, and sealed them with a few coats of shellac.  I plan to print these plates in groups, using a variety of colours.

I've got a few more days left here at the Cottage, then we head off to Hobart and Bruny Island for another week.  Of course, there'll be more time for art and exploring the local natural environment.

One of my small collagraphs

My inspiration wall is growing, you can see all the polaroid
photos there - recording my experiences of the gorge area.
These will be the basis for my artist book.

Artist Book "And still I see it" (with digitised version) at Udo Sellbach's exhibition

One of the page spreads from the digitised version of Sellbach's book,
I used the touch screen to 'turn' the pages and zoom in to read the text.

This swan family is a regular visitor to the gorge

Views over the gorge, on one of my walks

Sigh....the view from the cottage balcony

The cottage at dusk, looking up from the track

Pedestrian Artist Book

One of my final projects for my upcoming exhibition 'Big Smoke, Little Smoke' was a set of 5 artist books titled 'Pedestrian' primarily using photographic images - something quite different from my usual printmaking techniques.

The title 'Pedestrian' alludes to the banalness of the urban environment from a bicycle point of view. I often ride my bike along local roads and bike paths to go shopping etc.  One day I realised the extent of urban structure around me - road markings, signage, poles, bins, drains etc. There's so much of it, pointing us in the 'right' direction, guiding us through our journeys, and modifying the natural environment.  So banal, so much sameness, it all just becomes a blur in the background.  They are the stage props against which we act out our daily lives.

To create the layout for the 5 concertina books, I engaged the services of a graphic designer, Wendy Clark.  I had originally intended these to be circle accordion formats with a self-cover but a hiccup in the printing process meant that I had to change plans slightly and so my first books in the edition have self-made covers from box board and binding tape.  I also made a simple slipcase to house the books.  The low-tech cover and slipcase contrast nicely against the semi-gloss of the monotone photographs.

'Pedestrian' is designed to look a bit urban grungy and this first version certainly fits the bill.  

Quebec Print Version 2

Well here it is!  One of the prints that I completed for the Quebec exhibition, finally finished and I'm very happy with the result.

The embossing is gone, replaced by another print using rubber bands and a moon stencil.  Very simple but effective print reflecting the 'Water Portraits' theme.

My only problem now (as usual) is documenting the prints digitally.  I've just spent all morning trying to get the colours right; they don't seem to replicate properly using my digital camera.  The photograph above is probably the best likeness that I could get out of the 8 prints, in various colours of purple, lime green and blue.  The lime green is the most difficult to get right, it comes up in the digital image more like mud than a translucent bright green. 

So I have contacted Carl Warner, a very experienced art photographer who is coming next week to photograph all my current prints using his professional camera equipment.  He photographed some 3D work for me last year and I was very pleased with the results.  A great photograph really makes a good print look good (like it should!).  I'll blog some of the photos when I get them in a few weeks so you can see the gorgeous colours of the prints like they are in real life.