March 15 - May 17 2025
Welcome to the Burnie Print Prize at ‘The Bridge’ in 2025
The $20 million redevelopment of the Burnie Arts centre will be completed some time later this year but not in time, unfortunately, for the 2025 Burnie Print Prize. Co-existing with a building site to continue to deliver outcomes for our community has been incredibly important to us, but it has also had its challenges. As a team we have learnt to pivot, adapt, think outside the box and become masters of daily negotiation.
With the Burnie Regional Art Gallery not yet completed we are presenting the Burnie Print Prize this year in a new popup gallery created especially for this exhibition and we have named it “The Bridge” because it is next to a bridge but also because it is the ‘bridge’ to our new Arts Centre. Located just across the road from the Arts Centre, this warehouse style venue will have everything in place to display the results of printmaking from Tasmania and across the entirety of Australia to the highest standard.
When we make the first call out for entries, I have to confess to a brief moment of wondering if we will receive any submissions at all! But I need not worry. If 2023 was a record year for entries then 2025 has surpassed all our expectations to create a new record of 237 entries received from every state and territory. Of these 237 entries our panel of judges has selected 76 works for display and will choose, from those 76, an emerging artist to receive $5,000 (non-acquisitive) and an overall winner to receive $17,000 (acquisitive). The Burnie Print Prize is truly a nationally significant prize exhibition born right here in the North West of Tasmania.
My special thanks go to; our judges for 2025 Raymond Arnold, Michael Edwards, Marnie Karmelita and Melissa Smith: to Burnie City Council and Arts Tasmania for their financial support: to Ten Days on the Island for including this event in their 2025 festival and to Communion Brewing for supporting our opening event. Above all I must acknowledge the huge efforts of my extraordinary team and the many other individuals and departments of Burnie City Council who made this exhibition, and the creation of a special venue for it, possible for our community.
Mark Viner Burnie Arts
A message from the curator
Burnie has a deep and enduring connection to paper-based printmaking, rooted in its rich papermaking history. This tradition continues today through the Burnie Print Prize, a celebration of the craft, innovation, and expressive potential of contemporary printmaking.
While we eagerly anticipate the completion of the new Burnie Regional Art Gallery, we take great pride in “The Bridge,” our temporary exhibition space. In the face of building works and the challenges they bring, we remain steadfast in our commitment to showcasing exceptional art demonstrating that creativity and dedication flourish even in times of transition. Since its inception in 2007, the Burnie Print Prize has evolved to reflect the dynamic nature of the printmaking medium. Moving beyond the misconception that printmaking is purely a means of reproduction, the 2025 prize presents an array of unique and single-edition works. This exhibition features a compelling mix of both traditional and modern techniques, including woodcut, etching, lithography, engraving, and digital printmaking.
This year, artists from across Australia are represented, with works selected by a distinguished panel of four esteemed judgesMarnie Karmelita, Melissa Smith, Michael Edwards and Raymond Arnold. I extend my deepest gratitude to our panel of judges for their dedication and careful consideration throughout the selection process. Their expertise has helped shape an exhibition that not only honours the traditions of printmaking but also highlights the innovation and artistry shaping its future in Australia.
The prize pool of $23,000 underscores our commitment to fostering and recognizing talent within printmaking. The major prize of $17,000 will see the winning work become part of Burnie Regional Gallery’s permanent collection, joining a legacy of past winners spanning nearly 20 years. Additionally, an Emerging Artist Prize of $5,000 will be awarded to an artist with less than five years’ exhibition experience, who is not commercially represented or working in the industry in a professional capacity. Visitors will also have the opportunity to vote for their favourite work, with the People’s Choice Award winner receiving $1,000.
We invite you to immerse yourself in this celebration of printmaking and witness the remarkable talent of artists pushing the boundaries of the medium.
Allison Campbell Burnie Arts
in white ink with Chine-collé 76 cm x 112 cm
AP / 3
As an artist-printmaker drawing is an integral part of the printmaking half of my work sometimes preceding at other times following the printmaking process.
In my current work the prints were made from plen air drawings done in my local landscape. This direct connection to the subject and the immediacy of the moment are intrinsic to my work.
This print comes from a series of works done in an area close to my home in the Southern Highlands of NSW on the Nattai River.
This area was visited by artist Fred Williams in August of 1957. His initial eight week stay with the Stephens family at the property now known as “The Crags” produced the first of many iconic Fred Williams landscapes.
I’ve returned regularly to draw in these same areas that Williams worked in, mindful of seeing and drawing from a totally different time & perspective, and similarly to Williams, working with no artificial boundaries between print and/or drawing.
the half of it ~ field notes from the suburbs
Is there a growing sense that our psychological map of the real world and our place in it is faltering?
The standard storyline, the narrative, the notion that one thing leads causally and linearly to another, that there is truth and justice embedded in the universe, that a normal human life has meaning as a story: for a variety of reasons, all such ideas are looking more unlikely. What then might be the real nature of time, if there is such a thing? Could it be that all moments sing, ring out like bells through the dimensions, unrestricted by our ideas of space and time. That they are constituted of all other moments, colluding and colliding to make manifest the vast panorama of the apparent shape of things? How might an artists’ book approach such questions?
This work begins (and ends) with the presentation of standard, written fragments from a normal life. Progressively, however, these fragments undergo a visual, typographic, epistemological change into something else. The new shapes formed (like bells ringing?) collude to form other shapes that explore the same life in unfamiliar, non-linear ways. These middle pages are reminiscent of the descriptions of the “life review,” by those who experience a near death experience, reporting that all the moments of one’s life co-exist somehow, somewhere, outside of time, in unimaginable ways.
In the end, and beyond, life may be more like music than story.
After many years of basing my ideas on the drawings of others it feels apt to focus on my own form as I enter the next phase of my life - my body is changing and the relationship I have with it being pushed into unlearning.
The shapes are pulled from outlines of these drawings, entwined and meshing, evoking tumbling hormones and dizzying vertigo. The drawings go through multiple process to get to graphic linear motifs and then again to be transferred to silkscreens. Each step, is a move away from the source material thrust into isolation through the exposure process and brought back to an integrated form.
Silkscreen printing is a medium that allows me to push through a rigorous, process driven practice of repetition with every duplication producing an often imperceptibly different outcome. The shapes are the same but unique, the weather, the medium, the substrate my physicality changes each result.
My process is driven by acceptance of what would be seen as flaws and the challenge I have often of accepting them. Pinholes, unexpected glitches and unusual colour interactions and how they relate to the relationship with my own body and mental health, the push to see the beauty in twisted organic forms that show my hand, my vulnerability. Every day, I feel as if I am rearranging and reassessing my notions of beauty.
Remembered Sky 3 (detail) 2023
Relief collagraph, hand printed, monotype 112 cm x 77 cm (diptych - overall) 1/1
Remembered Sky 3 is one of a series which allude to a duality concerning memory, retaining positivity, and beauty. The author Albert Camus, in his essay ‘Return to Tipasa’, describes the experience of revisiting his much loved homeland after war, and finding solace, though only the sky was as he remembered it.
Since colour has an ability to arouse emotions and memories, I have hand printed using layers of ink to produce a richly textured and coloured surface with variations in intensity and value. The paper I have used is a Korean Kozo of great delicacy and strength.
Screenprint on paper
77 cm x 87 cm 1/6
Unsettlement Map [tools] reworks satellite imagery and place-names from across Australia to construct a visually unstable and cartographically disrupted map. The accumulated placenames suggest a mindset that examines the landscape for prospects and vulnerabilities, while revealing evidence of the implements that were used to form the landscape and enforce the colonial will. With the distortion effected through the use of an exaggerated halftone dot and deliberate colour mis-registration, the maps become visually unstable, drawing the viewer closer in an effort to render detail, then repelling them as each map dissolves into noise. They allow no comfortable point of viewing, but rather leave the viewer adrift, dis-oriented by the map, the very tool that should orient one’s position in space. The work considers the map’s use as a tool to shape, control and ‘settle’ zones of upheaval, and speaks to the unfinished and restless nature of this country and its history.
Loris BUTTON Van Eyck’s Turbans #1, #2, #3 (triptych) 2024
#1 linoprint & Chine-collé on Dutch Etching & chiyogami papers, #2 frottage & Chine-collé on Dutch Etching, tissue & chiyogami papers, #3 linoprint & Chine-collé on Dutch Etching, unruyu & chiyogami papers 95 cm x 95 cm irregular Unique State
Dr Loris Button grew up in Melbourne, Australia and now lives in the Victorian country town of Creswick. Her studies include a Diploma of Art at the Phillip Institute of Technology, a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania, a Certificate of Tertiary Teaching and a PhD at the University of Ballarat. Loris worked at the University of Ballarat as a Lecturer in Drawing, Painting and Postgraduate studies for 21 years before retiring from teaching in 2010. She is currently an active member of the Goldfields Printmakers Group.
Since 1978 Loris has regularly shown in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally. Her work is represented in public and university collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Federation University Australia, Hanji Development Institute Korea, Il Bisonte Foundation Florence, Port Authority of Santander Spain, RMIT University and Loreto College.
August CARPENTER
knowing another is endless (detail)
monotype with chine colle on Velin Arches 250gsm 56 cm x 288 cm (overall) Unique state
‘knowing another is endless’ traces a textured landscape beneath a dense, black sky, where the vastness of what could be around us meets the layered terrain on which we are grounded. Each print serves as an individual window into an expansive but fragmented whole, revealing glimpses of a landscape that feels both continuous and discrete all at once.
By breaking the monotypes apart, I invite engagement with each piece on its own as well as part of a broader journey. This separation highlights the boundless process of understanding, of moving through familiar spaces that seem to consistently hold new questions. Knowing another—whether a person, a place, or a memory—is a journey that has no end. The isolated prints depict moments within larger moments, fragments that hint at a vastness, to a future reconciliation of thoughts.
Through ‘knowing another is endless’ I encourage a connection with infinity, not as an everlasting void, but as a layered, textured experience that has the potential to unfold continuously. The black sky looms with a weight that transforms emptiness into something felt, while each mark and form invites reflection on the endless landscape of understanding –the ground is the whole world.
Maritime histories, exploration, mythologies, medieval charts and natural forces converge with my thoughts as I embark on a new adventure when creating my artworks. I love creating artworks that partly emerge organically through the analog process within today’s fast digital age.
Ideally, I’d spend time on my sailing boat to draw and photograph during my research, usually on Western Port but not exclusively, as a way of gathering information to assist me back in my studio.
Working with the reduction woodcut process, negotiating the uneven nature of the upcycled handmade woodblocks and using a textured paper brings unexpected directions from my preplanned composition. As the work develops slowly by building various layers of oil-based inks, removing parts of the woodblock and over printing the previous colour the artwork gains its own composition. At this point my role becomes like a composer to bring in or remove parts from focus. Similarly, I’m like a painter however I’m using a wooden block instead of brushes and printing ink replacing oil paint and using pressure to print the ink onto the paper from the wooden block.
Etching in plaster and dust print using a silkscreen 180 cm x 180 cm 1/2 VE
My current work examines social practices of filth and contamination that define subjects as either worthy (clean) or unworthy (dirty) via my mother’s broom which symbolically mediates our inherited gendered labour as women and the abject state of our histories and bodies. I use expanded print processes of contact, transfer and dispersion to generate a counter visual dialogue.
The work brings me closer to understanding her decision to commit suicide rather than become ill and age. I focus on the labour of sweeping and her classed position as an indentured woman on working class wages. I work through the rituals of lament with her broom in an act of honour and abjection. Through Material making I can mediate the space between her history and mine and place her next to me as a friend.
Screenprint of automatic line drawing on paper
59.4 cm x 42 cm
I make figurative line formations that play with narratives from the real world and the imagined. Squiggly, spontaneous lines speak to awkward moments of everyday banter, in person or online; rapid and automatic, freed from rational or pre-conceived control.
DE ROSA Oceanus 2023
Giclee print, photopolymer etching, emboss, acrylic paint, pigment stain, embossed glazed ceramics, bubble plastic, on magnani and Hahnemuhle paper
226 cm x 165 cm Unique state
Although my grounding is in traditional printmaking techniques I have always worked in a manner that challenges the reproduction aspect of printmaking, tending to extend the image beyond its original printed form. My incorporation of digital image making and etching into works echoes my interest in hybrids produced in the natural world through ever changing ecologies. These images are informed by my own investigation into the aqueous sphere and by research both in and around the ocean and by researching algae collections locally and internationally .
I have swum in my local environment almost daily for the last quarter century and spent hundreds of ours observing and recording the changeable shoreline. This particular work brings in small 3D ceramic pieces as kinds of accreted shards or ostracons. Ostracon were shards of Greek pottery with secret messages scribed into or written onto their surfaces. My recent rock pool studies have made me more aware of the natural and man-made accretions occurring in our natural environment as a result of human-driven ecological change which act as small warning signs..
My recent work is informed by writers including JG Ballard and Margaret Atwood who present a strange future dystopian world embodying the philosophical idea of ‘the sublime as turbulent nature’ where pleasure and awe are derived from observing objects that threaten hurt to or destroy.
Thickets with their entangled branches have been drawing me into their complexities. There is support within their structured nature, like a comforting way of being within their nest like environment, yet they are also restrictive of my thinking, holding me back, stuck in old habits of problem solving. Living with chronic pain has allowed me to dwell in the layered depths of my lithograph, using oil-based crayons, touche and even watercolour pencils, to lose myself. For the first time instead of finding a way through this entanglement, I realised I am dancing with it. The thicket beckons me.
Transhumanist technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and we are interacting and exploring this contemporary technology in new ways, are humans destined to become part human-part cyborg like so may sci-fi films of the past?
We are already made up non-biological matter, such as micro-plastics which have reportedly been found in newborn human placentas, as well as adults. A company called Nuralink have recently experimented with implants in human brains to neurologically control computers. This is a positive step for people with various mobility and communication issues, but there is a concern for the ethics of the manufacturers.
What is the next step for human evolution, and how far can we push our bodies to mesh with new technologies? It’s become the norm to tattoo, pierce, implant and inject foreign objects and materials into our bodies for decoration, implanting technology for the purpose of communication, navigation, work and pleasure doesn’t seem such a wild idea all things considered.
With the advent of global warming and the destruction of our own planet, humans might be safer living in a fully realised virtual reality without the need for our bodies. Is the human/cyborg idea already becoming outdated, do we even have a need for our physical bodies, should we fully embed ourselves into technology and embrace the void as a mind existing in the vast expanses of cyberspace?
The Divide is a contemplation on deforestation by natural and unnatural disasters. Recently I read an article on war and deforestation by CREAF (Center for Ecological Research and Forestry) Spain and it started me thinking about the environment as a neglected causality of war.
Adriana Clivillé Morató (climate change journalist) working with CREAF stated that “The war that has been raging in Syria since 2011 has wiped out 19.3% of the country’s forest cover in 9 years”. Angham Daiyoub (forestry engineer at CREAF) says that “Armed conflicts and wars are key drivers of human-induced landscape change mainly due to forest destruction, but also due to pollution and oil spills”.
Knowing what I appreciate as mist and rain in our Australian forest through war is slowly being turned into ash and dust in the forests of Syria or Ukraine causes unhappiness. Understanding that climate change, agriculture and mining are the leading causes of deforestation and adding the effects of seemingly never-ending wars to the equation creates an even deeper need to finding solutions.
This article gave me a sense of disquiet, a distortion in colour of our forests in my mind. There is a great collective sadness in losing the idea of the forest as ‘eternal’ or ‘invincible’ and this new factors have cemented we must take care and learn more about the human involvement in global deforestation.
For the last 5 years, I have been inspired by Australia’s alpine regions, creating hand painted linocuts. More recently, I have begun to tear up my linocuts, refitting them to form new collage works. I love cutting and tearing, finding ways that the lines connect between the pieces to create entirely new ‘landscapes’. These collages feel to me like maps of connections - connections with place and connections with people. They are optimistic, creating new work by tearing up the old. My work attempts to deal with the complexity of the subject matter - the interconnectedness of the elements of our harsh alpine environments, but it could also be argued that it is also attempting to deal with the complexity of this modern life we’ve created for ourselves.
The jigsaw woodblock print has proven to be the ideal translation of my art practice into a printmaking form. Each hard edged shape fills its defined border with pools of colour. Here, the appearance of woodgrain texture gives evidence to the materiality of the wood.
Using a varied palette and asymmetrical composition, Purl’s flow is predominantly vertical, the shapes almost forming a funnel where the eye is gently lead down to rest at an intersection of varied shapes and colours. This twelve colour work is an exploration of abstraction utilising movement, colour and texture in the medium of the woodblock print.
The White-faced Heron is the queen of the Yarra. To see one fly over, stalk her prey or stand, still as the trees around her by the waters of the Birrarung/Yarra River is always a magical experience.
Here a linocut of the White-faced Heron in flight is translucent against the eco-printed background. The colours and shapes of the eco-print are created from vegetation collected from the birds’ habitat, embedding it into the paper. The riverside has co-created this print.
The bird flies through, she does not stand out, but is interwoven against her background habitat. All the elements form the one whole.
As a constant observer of the natural world I am constantly observing and drawing trees. While I never intend to anthropomorphize objects in nature, I see trees as having strong “characters”.
I am drawn to single trees rather than trees that are part of a “crowd”. I call out to trees and feel an awe-inspiring connection with them. The Gatekeeper: I have known this tree all my life. It is in the street where I grew up in Ulverstone and it was a huge mature tree then so it must be over 100 years old. I saw it recently and was in awe of the way it was still standing there with a constant enduring presence.
354 screenprints on Stonehenge paper, photo album sleeves, digital video print 126mm x 87mm (each), book 402mm x 291mm 1/1
Though of a lake, The Filling and Disappearing is not about landscape.
North of Canberra is an endorheic lake which filled up at the end of 2021, only one of a few times in half a century, and is starting to empty again. The winter after her Nan died, Saskia filmed the body of water, conscious of its imminent disappearance.
“Don’t be distracted by the spectacle of the animated minute she presents to you, there’s much more to it. Each video frame has been painstakingly separated out, bitmapped for dot screen, transferred to the silk screen, printed once, scanned, and reassembled into light. For me, this attention to detail, these hours of effort, evokes someone gently washing every small surface of a corpse, an exquisite expression of love and care and respect. For Saskia it was a manifestation of the fear of her memories dispersing and disappearing, echoing Nan’s slow decline over her last five years.” – Dr Caren Florance.
The work contains two parts: a book of the hundreds of screenprinted film frames preserved in photo album sleeves; and the digital work, flickering with movement, like hazy memories looping and faltering.
Boondoggle-phase three (2023) is a project created in conjunction with Troppo Print Studio. This series of prints are a response to the AUKUS military pact announced on Australian news via TV broadcast, Internet and print. This screen-printed image is constructed using elements of a 16th century Dutch engraving titled, The storm on the sea of Galilei (1583) by Adriaen Collaert with a generic internet photograph of a Virginia class nuclear submarine.
Referencing printmaking history and contemporary working methods, this collaged image began its circulation as an A2 paste-up in Perth and Melbourne as a cautionary comment on the AUKUS defence pact. This printed image has moved from the ephemera of the street to a refined gallery space in an attempt to maintain public focus on the machinations of defence alliances and economic policy. This archival version employs collaged news headlines for nuanced emphasis creating a material paradox that underlines notions of war in the guise of defence.
In 2023 I was a guest artist in the Print Department at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. Taking inspiration from my immediate surroundings in the studio and outside along the vast Maiwar River. I captured and recalled reflections of light on water, surface textures, and design elements such as water drain covers. The imagery involved in the making process was visually immersive and at times surreal. The result was a body of work called ‘Out to see(sea)’ a series of pulp prints made from surplus years old university t-shirts, black, red and white.
I used every day industrial items from the papermaking studio, to impress, stencil and spray cotton pulp to achieve a three-dimensional photographic like image.
My practice is informed by an acute awareness for the global crisis of disposable fashion and its environmental and social impacts.
I work predominantly in a medium that I produce from pre used clothing and domestic cloth donated by my community.
These articles hold stories and traces of their past owners embedded in the fibres. While bringing my own experiences, I acknowledge all these stories and combine them in a retelling through pulp prints that are meticulously layered and delicately sprayed textural wonderlands.
150 cm x 57 cm x 30 cm Unique state
‘Shift III’ is part on an ongoing series of work informed by the rapidly shifting ecology of our oceans and river systems. Printing on engineering felt I experiment with dimensional properties through the act of folding, layering and stitching. The interplay of repetitive printed marks suggest refraction of light on water, protected in gentle folds, cradled and held.
K is for Kitab Tabakh (cookbook) is a new project featuring a collection of instructions in both English and Arabic on how to pipe Royal Icing to make a decorative cake. The written instructions are centered around my bi-cultural family home growing up in Australia living two cultures simultaneously. A cultural conversation between my mother and myself. The Latin letters spell out the instructions in Arabic and the Arabic letters spell out the instructions in English.
Inspired by my mothers lavishly decorated banquet style table settings, K is for Kitab Tabakh (cookbook) focuses on her efforts to retain our family traditions and language. Building from my other projects A is for Alam (pen) and M is for Madraseh (school) I constantly explore the disappearance of the Lebanese language within my family while growing up in Australia.
Looking down from a suspension bridge over the Picton River, I watched the clear tannin-hued waters flow like liquid amber over the edges of the rocky river-bed. Where sunlight reached the shallow pebbles they glowed bright, flickering orange-yellow in the current. The fresh leafy growth of the forest mingled with fallen logs and branches, transitioning to water-smoothed rocks and then to fast flowing water midstream. The dissolved tannin that creates this beautiful effect originates from the peat that forms underneath highland button grass plains at the river source, and the rainforest through which the river flows. This effect is a typical feature of the many watercourses that flow from the vast mountain ranges of Tasmania.
Water in landscape nearly always appears, and is therefore represented, in blues, greys and subtle aqua greens – reflected light from the sky as well as the softer colours of light which has passed through the water column. I love that in this natural landscape the water is many shades of clear orange, yellow, and deep vibrant brown. The water in this artwork was built up using three successive gradient layers of transparent and semi-transparent colour in order to create the effect of warm, glowing light.
Gija Elder - Mr. Patrick Mung Mung; The last man of his generation
2024
Linocut
53 cm x 39 cm
2 / 10 (+2 AP)
This linocut print marks my first exploration into this medium, embodying my artistic journey and deep cultural connections. Inspired by my late father, Jack Britten, and the influence of senior Warmun artists, I strive for a raw and fearless directness in my work.
The portrait honours Mr. Patrick Mung, a revered Gija Senior Elder and the last link to his generation. Born in 1948 at Spring Creek, Patrick represents the heart of Gija culture. His experiences as a stockman at Texas Downs Station and his leadership in the community have shaped his artistic practice since 1991.
Moments spent with Patrick, listening to his songs and stories of land evoke cherished memories of my father and the elders who guided me. I hold profound respect for this generation, feeling my father’s presence in those interactions, drawing me closer to my roots.
This print is more than a representation; it celebrates the resilience and continuity of our culture. It is my hope that this work serves as a tribute to the wisdom of our elders and inspires future generations to carry forward the rich tapestry of our heritage.
Rhi Johnson is an artist and educator based in Queensland, Australia who works primarily in the fields of printmaking, painting, and artist books. She is interested in the formation of everyday narratives, and how these can be disrupted or subverted visually. Increasingly, she has become interested in lived experiences and how these mediate everyday encounters, reactions, and interactions.
She investigates objects, signs, or other visual cues that can punctuate an environment, object or space of perceived meaning, and in doing so, may allude to parallel experiences and mechanisms for meaning making. This occurs in physical spaces inhabited or engaged with by multiple individuals, each presenting with their own history, understanding and intentions which dictate how they interact with and experience an environment. Johnson is interested in the overlapping traces that these interactions leave behind.
More recently, this focus has extended to shared domestic spaces and the unexpected encounters that can occur within. In this context, the artist interrogates self-reflective narratives of womanhood and motherhood through a neurodivergent lens. This shift represents a sense of vulnerability and transparency when dealing with small moments, slow evolutions, persistent discovery and individual and collective memory.
In this work my aim is to evoke a sense of isolation, contemplation and tension.
The still cold water of the swimming hole, large trees surrounding and no one else present. The senses teetering between joy and fearfulness. Aware of being alone, cicadas screaming from the surrounding bushland, hot sun, and of the unknown lurking in the deep icy cold depths by the riverbank.
Unique state
Ancient patterns, seriality and a sense of movement combine as crucial ingredients in the work based around the triangle.
This work reflects studies into the rhetorical triangle with Pathos, Ethos and Logos, where colour reflects emotions. A sense of depth and shadows remain integral in the work reflecting light and shade and the layers of sound and thoughts within rhetoric. With a limited colour scheme, I also attempt to evoke contemplation as if listening to the many layers of sounds in a landscape. My contemporary application of Japanese traditional woodblock techniques “Mokuhanga “ relies on all blocks to be hand carved and hand printed with a selection of barens and involving up to 60 blocks. Quality Japanese Kozo paper is an integral part of the print.
16 panel screenprint
117 cm x 171 cm Unique state
This work is about light, air and water, a moment of dynamic pressure, in which immense quantities of water is passed through a man-made dam in a rapidly changing state of liquid to spray. This relates to my interest in changing states of matter, and the ways that structures and hidden forces shape our experience of place and of time. The 16 panel screenprint was made in response to the dams that shape the bodies of water on Ngunawal and Ngambri Country –bottle necks that drastically change these places. However, these forces often remain hidden.
In this way, air is a metaphor for the forces at the edge of our perception, reflected in the operation of the halftone as a form of reproduction that introduces a porosity to the photographic image. I understand this an image held in a state of play, in which the grid is undermined and never fully crystallises, but is rather formed and reformed in relation to the eye and the body. The gridded structure of the work further complicates the monolithic nature of the image, allowing the paper to catch movements of air created by the viewer within the space.
Many animals worldwide are under threat of extinction. I live on a rural property located in the beautiful Northern Rivers region of NSW and, unfortunately, there are many animals under threat in this area.
My work, Memento mori: family ‘photos’ is a boxed set of five reduction linocuts depicting five Northern Rivers endangered or vulnerable animals.
The presentation of the prints is important to the reading of the work. The prints are mounted with photo corners and stored in a box, referencing the manner in which many of us store our precious family photos for safe keeping.
I have selected one animal from five of the major animal groups which are under threat: the koala (marsupial); the jabiru (bird); Stephen’s banded snake (reptile); the green and golden bell frog (amphibian) and the birdwing butterfly (insect).
These images present a glimpse into what the future may hold for each of these animals.
There is time…we still have a choice.
168 cm x 300 cm A.P / 3
I am investigating the idea of variation and repetition of image in a large scale work which can emulate some of the sensations of musical rhythm. This idea is based on works by the composer Eric Satie, in particular the works Variations,Vexations (1893), Gymnopedies (1888) which rely on creating melodic musical scores through repetition and change of tempo.
The work “Submerge” is comprised of multiple repeated Drypoint and Mokulito prints with variations and investigates the rhythm of the underworld of the sea. There are deep base notes of the ocean floor and lighter sounds/tones relating to light. The variations of images are limited to three key images, the shadows of the partially submerged submarine, ‘The Cerribus’, the play of light on the sea floor and marine life including types of stingrays and eels. These have been observed and imagined while long distance swims in Port Phillip Bay over the last twelve months.
The work “Submerge” is also drawing attention to climate change and the necessity to monitor rising sea temperatures and waste to ensure sea creatures can continue to survive.
Etching and aquatint from six copper plates
49 cm x 172 cm
8/30
Damon Kowarsky’s etching Panorama, Ulcinj captures the serene beauty of the coastal town of Ulcinj, Montenegro, with a keen eye for detail and a deep appreciation for the landscape’s historical and cultural significance. The etching presents a sweeping view of the town, nestled along the Adriatic Sea,with its buildings and roofs creating a harmonious contrast against the natural surroundings.
Kowarsky’s use of etching brings out the intricate textures and fine lines that define the town’s architecture and coastline. The careful rendering of each element in the scene - from the rolling hills to the calm waters of the sea - conveys a sense of timelessness and tranquillity. The artist’s attention to the interplay of light and shadow adds depth and dimension to the work, making the landscape come alive with a quiet, contemplative energy.
Panorama, Ulcinj is not just a depiction of a physical place but an invitation to explore the essence of Ulcinj. Through his meticulous technique, Kowarsky captures the spirit of the town, reflecting both its enduring history and its serene present. The etching serves as a visual meditation on place, memory, and the beauty of the natural world, inviting viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet splendour of Ulcinj.
The Complete Statement & Walk in Two Worlds (detail) 2023
Relief rolled colour
195 cm x 210 cm x 50 cm 1/2
The Complete Statement and Walk in Two Worlds were created in 2023 as I listened to the myriad voices, Indigenous and non-indigenous, regarding the referendum along with questions concerning the workings of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Treaty and Makarrata. In 2022 I received permission from Professor Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman of the Barunggam Nation, and co- architect of the Uluru Statement Uluru Dialogues, to make work about the Uluru Statement From The Heart using text from the Uluru Statement for the two-sided banner pieces.
The colours reference flora native to Australia and the play of light on landforms around Uluru. The apertures echo the text into the Australian consciousness whilst the letters beneath the banners a reminder of so many promises not kept
Australian musician Warren Ellis is a big inspiration whose music is always on rotation in my studio. He is a successful composer on the world stage and a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Dirty Three. I have painted a couple of portraits of Warren over the years and in this work I’ve tried to capture his relaxed and generous personality.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Warren a little bit and met him here in Australia and where he lives in Paris.
Through our interactions he has always been the most generous and thoughtful person, which I have hopefully captured in this work. This etching comes from a number of live drawing studies.
drfited matter - away from here
Aquatint, tousch etching, embossment
53 cm x 39 cm
drifted matter – away from here embodies a tension between nostalgia and urgency. The drifting, white embossed form in the work is an impression from the seed of the common Barley grass, an important but common food source of the non-human. This seed thrived on the neglect it was shown within the immediate yard space of my home residence until I plucked it and brought it into my adjacent studio, where it has been thoroughly questioned.
Grasses are often overlooked and viewed at as weeds, and not nearly given enough of a chance to reveal themselves and their uses, before having their limbs ripped, poisoned or sliced away by us.
Migrating away from the land/body/mass behind it, not knowing where it will settle and spread roots next (if in fact it could complete its intended lifecycle of reproducing itself) this arrangement serves as a reflection of my own contemplations around my current position in life. As a ‘foreigner’ to my current geography, I ebb and flow with not truly knowing where I come from or where it is I should go next.
Louise Malarvey is an artist developing a repertoire of images to reflect the cultural learning taught to her by the elders of her family. Committed to her cultural tradition and its expression Louise explores an individual interpretation of colour and composition to best translate her cultural learning.
“I was born in Darwin and grew up at Mistake Creek and Bamboo Springs and then moved to Kununurra and lived at Lily Creek. Afterwards I went to Emu Creek with my Mum. We used to catch the bus into Kununurra for school. We lived in the ranch area at Kununurra in the 90’s. I followed my mother to do painting. I watched my mother paint since I was small when she used to sell her paintings at the bakery before Waringarri Arts started. Everyone - my grandpa, my mum and dad all moved to Waringarri then.”
My etching of a kelp basket is based around the only surviving provenanced 19th century Aboriginal basket held in the collection at the British Museum, donated after the Great Exhibition of 1851 by Joseph Milligan, surgeon, natural historian and colonial administrator.
In 1850, when appointed Secretary of the Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) Milligan was a member of the committee who selected the Tasmanian Aboriginal material to be displayed in London at the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. At the end of the exhibition, the Royal Society donated five Tasmanian Aboriginal objects to the British Museum, of which the basket was one.
The Seahorses that rise out of the ‘Kelp Basket’ are close to extinction due to demand from Asian countries. The Tasmanian company Seahorse World at Beauty Point controls a breeding program to protect the seahorse and supply this demand.
The name of the genus that contains seahorses is taken from the Greek words hippos (meaning ‘horse’) and kampos (meaning ‘sea monster’)
It is interesting to note that the male seahorse carries the fertilized eggs and once the eggs hatch, he convulses his body and expels the young through a single opening in the pouch.
The plants included in the etching are Melaleuca ericifolia, and Hakea lissosperma, both Tasmanian coastal plants.
This image is delivered from time to time, from place to place, and from person to person, through the slow and tactile process of silkscreen printing. Hand-pulled across the surface, and held within many separate layers of transparency, the graphic patterns of these paired prints offer visual critique on a rapidly evolving digital landscape – an increasingly invisible country, where information collects beyond thresholds of perception.
The glassy finish of these prints is a reference to contemporary information surfaces, where digitally shared images appear located and seamlessly present. For me, this illusory interface also evokes a past – a reference to my Vietnamese heritage, and a chance to work conceptually and materially with the aesthetic and preserving qualities of traditional black lacquerware. This combined past-and-present works to invite new ways of seeing in a time where it is becoming harder to notice the generational transfer of information.
The title of this work references a Zen teaching that describes how perception can arise in different forms: understanding, confusion… and realisation.
In the beginning, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; then, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; finally, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.
In this artwork, new lung; long breath, short breath I am responding to changes in affects in time and place in the post pandemic age. To make these works, Japanese rice paper is relief printed on an etching press from traditionally etched copper plates. Printed using oil-based inks which repel watercolour and translucent inks, the papers are saturated in colour and are dried. The papers are then hand cut, strung into long lengths, then formed into straws using archival glues. The straws are then threaded and woven into place over a simple lightweight structure with cotton string.
print - editioned from copper plate toner transfer etchings, proofed and hand retouched on found newsprint 95 cm x 185 cm 6/25
When it comes to trees I have always been drawn to the conifers, their fractal forms and Fibonacci clues hinting at the infinite (or at least a bigger picture) and revealing glimpses of underlying order and flux.
With the ability to endure varied and harsh conditions, they are widely seen as symbols of resilience and longevity, onto which can be projected a quiet stoicism that can benefit our human need for peace and stillness amid the busyness of life.
Or, when a search for meaning goes round in circles, we can simply sit back and enjoy the quiet jazz of it all...
Lithography 57 cm x 77 cm each 1/8
‘Heron and Honey Eater’ first emerged as charcoal drawings sketched at my local creek in Wurundjeri Country, Naarm. The drawings were translated into print via lithography. The receptiveness of the lithography stone to record tonal detail, its capacity for erasure to expose fine detail, its sensitivity to wet medium like tusche/ink made it an ideal print medium for this work.
Upon preparing the stone, ink was applied with a broad brush in a swift gesture, to imitate the quick movement of the birds. This technique is reminiscent of Japanese ink brush painting known as Sumi-e, wherein the simple but bold brushstroke would capture the spirit of the subject. Additionally, the sweep of ink on the stone serves as a fluid interruption to the body of the birds to remind us of their habitat in shallow wetlands and ultimately, their wildness. When spotted, birds are rarely stationary for very long- the honey eater weaves through the trees on its quest for pollen, the heron hunts amid long grasses, hidden from view.
This work relies on its drawn origins. The curve of the breast or the upright assertion of the birds’ back is drawn by scraping the side of a crayon. Details are established with grease pencil and highlights are etched from the grease to resist the ink roller when printed. The technique of lithography is well suited to depicting waterbirds in its elemental basis of stone and water, akin to the flowing Darebin creek and its rocky banks.
Two Figures Interwoven (detail)
My artistic practice harnesses the lived experience of blindness as a mode of visual abstraction. The work toys between familiarity and unfamiliarity through overlapping disjointed mark-making with recognisable pictorial forms. Intense contrasts and sharp textures are paramount in creating intentionally bold and overwhelming imagery, reflecting the overstimulation of visually impaired experience. The work is often grounded in figuration, which acts as an entry point beyond which viewers are invited to contemplate ambiguous visual material or, as I’ve come to call it, the ‘glitch’. Each print investigates the process of compartmentalising one’s surroundings and the specific ways in which images are formulated within the brain. In essence, each piece underscores a desire to deconstruct the visual experience, allowing space for an alternate form of perception.
The Toolache Wallaby was found in South Australia and Victoria, and it was considered one of the most beautiful and graceful of all wallabies and kangaroos. The wallaby was killed by introduced predators, like foxes, and hunted for both sport and its beautiful pelt. Its habitat was destroyed to make room for agriculture. Attempts to save the species in the 1920s failed. The Toolache Wallaby became extinct.
The wallaby prints on every page of this concertina book stare at the viewer with accusation. As the book recounts the extinction story, the linocut prints become fainter until only the impression of the wallaby remains. This artwork is a memorial for the Toolache Wallaby, and yet, if we can learn from this extinction, it may also produce hope for other species’ stories.
Janet PARKER-SMITH
Precariously Yours (detail) 2024
Etching and screen print
76 cm x 180 cm (triptych)
2 / variable edition of 2
This work features photographic and found imagery repurposed to explore themes of identity, memory and surrounding landscapes. The artist’s pieces intend to provoke thought on concepts of territory and time.
Through the process of collage and printmedia the juxtaposed images of varying landscapes hint at actions and changes we unconsciously make that inform future identities. The work looks at the changing environment of our natural and urban space and how we learn to adapt to it. It considers our need and reliance on nature but also our unconscious exploitation of the land.
While using forms of familiarity and sentimentality we look at disjointed images that sit along further disjointed forms showing an ambiguity in their composition.
Dusk is a 2 - colour lithograph. The key black image was drawn on a stone and an aluminium plate was used to add the blue background. It depicts a covered car in a Melbourne street. It’s obviously a classic American vehicle, longer than most other cars, and probably much-loved by its owner. It’s also an artefact from an era that feels a world away from the urgency of today’s concerns.
Chemigrams, 200gsm canson paper, 18kt gold & found objects 16 cm x 180 cm (fully open) Unique state
Taking an inanimate object, the artist is interested in capturing the essence underlying the visible, to construct a reality as real as anything. The ephemeral nature of the process and the unknowns create an experience not just an object.
A mix of intention and chance, Chemigrams, a little known and rarely used process, sits at the intersection of printmaking, drawing and photography. The process and approach belongs to printmaking and drawing/painting, the materials belong to photography without a camera.
Using light and time, each image is a unique original and cannot be replicated since no matrix exists.
This unique artwork references Tasmania’s lost oyster reefs using the ocean itself - sea water, found oyster shells and sand. The mystery is within the process creating images reminiscent of the cosmos, dreams, metaphysical questions.
Oysters filter coastal waters around the world and help protect against flooding yet pollution and dredging have destroyed many of their habitats. And we cannot ignore the increasing acidification of the ocean, the seemingly insurmountable issues of climate change;
Rather than heavy-handed protest, the artist favours a gentle form of persuasion and aims to seduce through beauty and subtlety in a contemporary era where there’s so much wonder and so much possibility,
Images are coaxed from emptiness, bringing them into the world rather than snatching them from it. Coming out of a sort of poetic intuition my hope is that more complicated feelings and a multiplicity of visual meaning comes through - without a clear lesson.
Cat POLJSKI
Reflecting Spaces 1-3
2024
Etching, engraving, relief print
91 cm x 210 cm (triptych)
Unique state
The Crystal Palace is adorned with expansive glass panels on an iron structure that is clover shaped and crowned by a dome. It is 22.6 meters high and stands majestic at the centre of Buen Retiro Park, Madrid, Spain. The ingenious use of cast iron columns and generous glass surfaces allows for a spacious and grand interior, which compliments its description, as a glass cathedral. During the time I spent in Madrid in April 2024, the building was undergoing renovations which allowed me to study the way light illuminated both the interior and the exterior. It mirrored a sense of duplicate spaces, transparent, inside out. Its reflective surfaces and the refractions of light from the sun inspired this triptych and resulted in differed shards of light and shapes that sparked an imagined new space where the inside was outside and vice versa. The structure became abstracted due to the luminosity struck by different angles; transparent layers and multiple reflections created an optical illusion that inspired these etchings. Surrounded by and encased in glass, the surrounding areas of space began to form its own selection of fabricated façades for me; ones that existed momentarily and transcribed into these prints which are layered and burnished on paper.
Andrea PRZYGONSKI
Armada - What Lies Beneath I, II, III (triptych) (detail)
2024
Screen print on hardboard, with photoluminescent pigments
60 cm x 90 cm (overall)
Unique state
Time is a creeper, moving at an indeterminable speed. We’re in its grip and have no choice but to be swept along. Layers of experiences compress to make us who we are, an action barely perceptible, slowly and silently recording the rhythms of time.
At the core we are fundamentally identical and we’re all heading in the same direction toward our ending, we just have different timings. No period within this timeline makes a person superior or inferior to others, yet it seems certain ages are held up to be more desirable.
The work comments on the nuanced experiences of being my age, and of ageism as a pervasive feature in our society. Photoluminescent ink exposes and hides the depths of the imagery depending on the light. Morse Code has been integrated to convey the subtle messaging of ageism, the markings translate to the well-worn jibes often levelled at older people.
I am here, yet invisible. What appears on the surface is not always a reflection of the underneath and hidden signals in our actions and words either build or erode the whole. Mostly now the cloak of invisibility covers me.
It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear
2024
Silkscreen printing, unique state artist book
57 cm x 75 cm Unique state
It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear 1
Within Antoni Tapies’ text, Crosses, Exes and Other Contradictions, the artist refers to the ‘Intersection of contrary forces’ quoting Heraclitus: Oppositions are useful. The most beautiful harmony is born of opposites. Everything proceeds from discord. The world is both multiple and one.2
This unbound artist book, takes inspiration from Tapies’ analogy; overlaying contrasting forms of knowledge - that of machine and organic - setting up a tension between two layers of mark making. In the book sequence, there also exists tension between digital and analogue navigation modes - the reoccurring vessel motif, an aquatic ‘smart’ platform that navigates and tracks ocean data and the analogue machine - compass and apparatus. Over laying these forms with the materiality of rust, as the reader engages with its coarseness, they are implicit in a physical reaction of matter. The book form is explored through materiality - iron, water and interaction; activating rust as pigment, the reader handles the book and senses abrasion, resonating conceptual concerns with transformation and interactivity (interaction with machine, transformation of modes of technology).
The reader encounters micro haptics evident in 3D elements such as visible residual pigment and collage forming a relationship between optic and haptic signals, oscillation between representation and abstraction, stillness and space. Iron particles visible through translucent stain, alongside the darkness of dense rust material and organic brushstroke, invite the viewer to navigate through layered perspectives and to meditate on the constant dialectic between matter and process.
1 Khalil Gibran, ‘Fear’.
2 Antoni Tàpies, ‘Creus, ics i altres contradiccions’ (Crosses, exes and other contradictions”), L’art i els seus llocs (Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 1999). Obra: Antoni Tàpies, Creu de paper de diari (Newsprint Cross), 1946-1947.
For the last 2 years I have been playing with photograms made in cyanotype and anthotype processes whenever sunny weather hits. It’s a satisfyingly simple process - preparing emulsion, coating and drying paper in the dark, selecting objects to record and then just leaving it all in the sun for a while - hours or weeks depending on chemistry and cloud cover.
So far it has proved a useful way to record aspects of a number of significant life events occurring across this time - this instance, buying my family’s first home and moving them from the city to a small, agrarian community.
I frequently combine analogue and digital processes and one of the most enjoyable aspects of these photograms has been to digitally enlarge them, inflating small items/details to more monumental proportions.
Akimbo is an exposure made from the leg of a blackbird, found decomposing in collected rainwater in my garden, made monumental through upscaling, made more figurative through mirroring into a diptych and then elevated to something my eyes read as regal or even papal through digitally shifting the familiar Prussian Blue of cyanotype emulsion to an almost mercurochrome red. The upscaled texture of the paper it was recorded on, reminding me of holy relics like the Shroud of Turin or Veil of Veronica.
The leg is now a Significant Object in the ongoing material investigation of this tiny piece of the earth where I find myself custodian; a charm of good fortune and a fascinating lesson in bird anatomy.
My creative practice responds to our post-digital world. I explore themes of visual attraction and discomfort, informed by the way digital technology shapes our perceptions. I often use multiplelayered silkscreen printing to anchor the electronic screens’ vibrant colours, light, and movement with the still printed surface. This allows the fleeting qualities of digital images to become physical and tangible, examining the role of materiality in the contemporary image.
In Filtered Light II, my printed outcome is extended with weaving to explore visual uncertainty. The fluid nature of the digital image obscures the origins, process, and authorship from the viewer. However, the evidence of labour materially affirms time and process within the surface of my work. I apply grids of geometric pixel-like marks printed in unplanned, responsive layers to explore instability within a fixed system. This is further disrupted by an unstructured play of colour, shadow, and movement that emerges from the spliced woven surface. The resulting visual flux creates a complicated yet slower visual relationship with the viewer. Filtered Light II integrates shifts of counter states to create unstable visual experiences that move and shimmer with unexpected results.
The south east coast waters of lutruwita/Tasmania are cold with remnants of giant kelp and tiny handfish; both are a fragile and threatened species. There are tiny islands and numerous bays and inlets. I regularly paddle out around the “Spectacle Islands” they are a bird reserve where the birds regularly feed from the exposed rock pools and shallow waters at low tide. Within the water surrounding the islands seals often rest in the shallow reefs. Eagle rays can be seen with the tips of their wings emerging from the shallow water. There is nothing better than drifting along in a kayak around the island watching the various birds diving for fish and looking for movement in the water that can be seals, rays swimming past or fish jumping.
An island in an expanse.
An amalgamation of creative souls, resting against each other, solidifying with mutual respect and adoration.
The textured complexities, weathered by experience.
Intricate, durable, formidable.
An erupting and unsettling sky threatens to rain conflict.
Threatening after a time of pent up past unresolved hurt.
The clearing firmament.
With resolution, they remain steadfast.
intaglio - line etching, aquatint, drypoint
50.5 cm x 40 cm 1/9
Sagnal is a line etching, aquatint and drypoint made as part of a body of work exploring an alter ego sorcerer character, Smoron, first exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Print Council of Australia in 2024.
Rather than follow a tightly planned compositional process, my mark-making was dictated by flow states achieved through steady, but relaxed concentration. I wanted the subconscious to influence the making process. Further to this, the copper plate already had significant marks on it from when I used it to demonstrate techniques to students over the years. To contrast the spontaneous and expressive marks, I aimed to print the work in a very clean manner, paying particular attention to the bevelled edges of the plate. The project thereby became an aesthetic exercise in flow and control – of the different ‘personalities’ within.
Within Sagnal are embedded symbols (visible and covered over) that emerged from the making process. These liken bind-runes and magical glyphs known as sigils. Inspired by the early twentieth century British artist, Austin Osman Spare, I engaged in sigil-making using similar methods to his. To make a sigil according to Spare you set an intention within a light trance state, write it out, take away the vowels and repeating letters and, then you combine the remaining letters into a singular form at your whim. This abstracted symbol becomes an embodiment of the intention. The symbol is then ‘sent’, sunk into the unconscious and forgotten, so it can do its work of transformation.
Jessica ROW
Someone known and loved (detail) 2024
Screenprint on paper
69 cm x 101 cm 1/3
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this work contains the names of deceased persons.
‘Someone known and loved’ lists ninety-six Australian women* whose lives were taken due to acts of violence in over a twelve-month period prior to Burnie Print Prize entries closing, from October 5, 2023 to October 30, 2024. Names are screenprinted using iron oxide to represent the primary component of blood cells, and using a font used in the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032. This work is a memorial, to remember and honour these people; ninety-six lives taken from us too soon in acts of violence that continue to be perpetrated in alarming frequency against women* across Australia and beyond. In instances where the name of the person was withheld or unknown, the artist has instead acknowledged them as ‘someone known and loved’ - as they were known, even if not to us, and they were loved, and are loved still.
The artist acknowledges Sherele Moody and her tireless work to report on these events and record these lives via the Red Heart Campaign’s Memorial to Women and Children. The names in this work were drawn from this memorial, and further information can be found at https://australianfemicidewatch.org/
In the time since this work was created, additional women* have been acknowledged, bringing the total number killed during this period to 104 people, including; Annie Ng, Bronnwyn Anne O’Gorman, Rehana Parvin, Coral Seinor, Thelma Clausen, Suzy Rackemann, Isla Bell, and Someone known and loved.
* Whilst people in this list are collectively referred to as women, the artist acknowledges some identified in other ways.
‘Sanctuary of Forest and Stone’ dwells within the TaKayna/Tarkine, where forest and stone coexist in an evolving dialogue of endurance and transformation. Across these works, the forest is represented not merely as a backdrop but as a living force. Sinkholes, formed over millennia, emerge as both rupture and refuge, the passage of water, root, and stone pressing time beyond its human scale. Within these voids, haunted continually by erosion and renewal, neither hope nor sorrow can be merely carried but are absorbed, reshaped, and softened by the land’s own rhythms.
Through layers of shifting light, dense foliage, through the breath-like undulation of stone, these works seek to evoke a sanctuary neither fixed nor fragile, where time, like water, carves and shifts the contours of what is seen and heard. The TaKayna/Tarkine is not, here, a wildness set apart, but an entanglement of vulnerability and endurance, familiar in near-forgotten ways. It is a vast and listening body where loss, too, finds form.
The work is an offering to the rhythms of place, an engagement with the impermanence of form and the deep interconnections, for ourselves, between landscape and emotion. Not as witness, but as part of this movement, the works acknowledge a landscape that is not static, not passive, but an active presence. Here, the earth breathes, listens and reshapes with room enough for us to recognise ourselves within it, of it, should we choose.
Two terms have come to dominate contemporary political and personal discourse: confirmation bias—the tendency of people to favour information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values and which is difficult to dislodge once affirmed, and posttruth, whereby objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to personal and emotional beliefs. In themselves, these ways of forming and confirming our values and beliefs are not new, however their identification and actual naming in recent times attests to their significance today.
withIN/withOUT comprises three artist books and focuses on ways by which we access ‘versions of the truth’. Incoming information can be distorted through elimination or redaction. On the other hand, an avalanche of unfiltered digital information can cause mental snow blindness. And then I can create my own version of the truth by favouring information that mirrors my own prejudices and values.
My work continues to engage with the image/text relationship and investigates the powers attributed to language through print. While the codex book format encourages viewer participation and reveals its message in real time, the fluorescent acrylic housing the artist books references the illuminated screens which monopolize contemporary communications.
The short weight is an image of a man on stilts the bases of which are burning. The title relates to both the inevitable end of the current situation and the excessive diatribes from political parties selling us environmental remedies cloaked in spin.
Lisa SEWARDS WAR PIGEONS XXXII
Intaglio etchings - thirty-two multi-plate etchings 15 cm x 18 cm BFK Rives 280gsm, hand scrolled 3 cm diameter, paper twine, hand written text in graphite, archival solander box with silver foil embossing on cover and inside cover 4.5 cm x 110 cm x 33 cm Unique state
My submission is inspired by the historical role of homing pigeons in communication. From 1906 to 1930 these remarkable birds facilitated vital messages between Tasmania’s remote islands of Tasman and Maatsuyker and the mainland, serving as lifelines for lighthouse keepers. This form of delivering messages was also vital during both world wars, and in 1941 the Australian Corps of Signals Pigeon Service donated 13,500 pigeons to military use.
My unique state artist book presents the thirty-two war pigeons that were awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest military honour to animals who have served in wartime. Two of the pigeon recipients were Australian and are taxidermied and housed at the Australian War Memorial Canberra. Each intaglio etching represents the thirty-two pigeons, are hand scrolled and presented in a manner reminiscent of ancient manuscripts. Rolled and tied with paper twine, the scrolled etchings echo the way pigeons carried messages, creating a tangible connection.
Presented within an archival solander box, this work is a time capsule of history and each of the birds’ names and identification numbers are hand written on each scroll. The internal ribbons are the colours of the Dickin Medal trimming. Each scroll is intended to remain within the box, inviting viewers to engage with the narrative without disturbing the physical presentation.
Through this work, I aim to evoke a sense of reverence for these pigeons including the past contributions by pigeons in Tasmania’s communication network.
I have the great privilege of working in the beautiful Pilbara region of Western Australia. As I move through this place, I get lost in the stunning yet unrelenting landscapes. Daily, I encounter the juxtaposition of these ancient landscapes against the growing demand for resources and am forced to reflect on my own position within this context.
This work emerged from an interactive dialogue I had with an area of land north of Newman, where the custodians are the Nyiyaparli peoples. I used experimental screen printing techniques along with Pindan earth collected from site to create patterns. I then submit the work back to the environment for a response. This interplay forms a dynamic dialogue—pushing and pulling as I add and it subtracts or moves my marks.
This work developed from time spent at Hill End, an old mining town in NSW. Pieces of discarded, wooden furniture were found in the bush. On site, these were dismantled, spread out on the ground, painted with black ink, and carved. The image created on eleven small blocks of wood is based on observations of antiquated mining equipment.
In the studio, the work was further developed. Backs of blocks with scratches and dovetail edges were printed first, followed by carved images. In the left panel, blocks are placed according to the layout of the original ink painting creating a fixed grid. The central panel undoes the rigidity of the original structure, and the right panel builds a column on its traces.
Through the process of making, an exploratory journey was undertaken with materials, placement, inking and colour. This work also explores the graphic potential of printed images made from found objects, and their ability to transform original meaning.
Feelings of tranquillity and wonder are created as the moonlight casts the most gentle aura of light, illuminating the mountains form. The magnificent view of Barn Bluff creates a deep sense of stillness. Time seems to pause, allowing us to fully appreciate the profound beauty we are immersed within.
Multi-plate aquatint etching
60 cm x 80 cm 2/30
Artist
Statement - Ruth Stanton - Precious Cargo
Stanton’s practice considers ceramic industries and the relationship between ceramics and the places they are made, travel through, and end up Inspired by the ‘white hills’ of discarded ceramics at old kiln sites in Edmund de Waal’s book The White Road she often depicts ceramics as part of the landscapes their stories belong to
Stanton’s practice considers ceramic industries and the relationship between ceramics and the places they are made, travel through, and end up. Inspired by the ‘white hills’ of discarded ceramics at old kiln sites in Edmund de Waal’s book The White Road she often depicts ceramics as part of the landscapes their stories belong to.
Stanton’s exploration of 青青青(qīng huā cí) or blue and white porcelain, began with her first residency at YAC Printmaking Base in Tianjin, China, in 2018. Her work there focused on Chinese ceramics and used water as a point of connection between Tianjin and her home city of Melbourne. Both are port cities separated, but also joined, by water.
Stanton’s exploration of 青 花 瓷 (qīng huā cí) or blue and white porcelain, began with her first residency at YAC Printmaking Base in Tianjin, China, in 2018 Her work there focused on Chinese ceramics and used water as a point of connection between Tianjin and her home city of Melbourne Both are port cities separated, but also joined, by water
Precious Cargo was produced during Stanton’s second residency at YAC Printmaking Base in 2023, and is one of her most technically complex works to date. This two-plate aquatint etching is made complicated due to its size, four times larger than Stanton’s usual works, and the use of her characteristically detailed linework. The textured sand, created with a speckled layering of brown and blue, contrasts to the smooth blue and white of the porcelain with their burnished highlights.
Precious Cargo was produced during Stanton’s second residency at YAC Printmaking Base in 2023, and is one of her most technically complex works to date This two-plate aquatint etching is made complicated due to its size, four times larger than Stanton’s usual works, and the use of her characteristically detailed linework The textured sand, created with a speckled layering of brown and blue, contrasts to the smooth blue and white of the porcelain with their burnished highlights
Precious Cargo is inspired by stories of porcelain lost overboard on their journey from Jingdezhen, along the Chang River, and across the ocean. It is a dream-like depiction of a precious cargo of fine ceramics washing up on shore undamaged, merging with the landscape, floating in the blue of the ocean and adding porcelain rocks and boulders to the shore.
Precious Cargo is inspired by stories of porcelain lost overboard on their journey from Jingdezhen, along the Chang River, and across the ocean It is a dream-like depiction of a precious cargo of fine ceramics washing up on shore undamaged, merging with the landscape, floating in the blue of the ocean and adding porcelain rocks and boulders to the shore
A Short History of Gardening in the Bush I 2024
Multi-plate composite etching, aquatint, Chine-colle, hand-colouring and 23k gold leaf
67 cm x 168 cm
Unique state
“A Short History of Gardening in the Bush I” is a composite multi-plate etching that relates a personal experience of resettling in the bush and honours the memory and wisdom of a gardening mentor.
Still and silent amongst tall, dark trees there lived a man who took his time and planted a garden of fragrant blooms and many trees; nurturing all the pods, cuttings and seeds collected on his many wanderings. Over time the garden grew dense and tangled and hid the man as he grew old. Passers-by would sometimes glimpse him, lanky, still and reticent to talk, but always ready with a small gift of seeds or knowledge.
Long after he passed, they recalled and revisited the details of the conversations, contemplated their own gardens and sometimes wondered if they had talked to the man or his garden.
Chemical Bonding, reflects the community connections formed through collaborative artmaking and generous knowledge sharing between artists. This collection of prints was led by renowned Chemigram artist, Simone Darcy, during an artist workshop at Sawtooth ARI in October 2024. Simone shared the magic, skills, and process of this often-overlooked form of printmaking. The Chemigram process is an intimate experience, a collaboration not only between artists but between the artist and traditional darkroom chemicals. The woven fibers of the textile on which they are printed reflect the weaving of knowledge and the interaction of artists in communal, collective making. In this work, discreet elements combine to create something new. This collection documents each artist’s unique approach to the challenges and potential of the medium, whilst at-large expressing the power of knowledge sharing.
This statement has been written in collaboration with Olly Read.
188 cm x 104 cm x 26 cm
Unique state
Presenting an installation of sculptural paper foldings in a repeated pattern, Sarah Thornton-Smith’s Heartlines hold in its intent an expression of diasporic disintegration and an acculturation of a new sense of what it means to be home.
With a multi ethnicity background being a Malay-Chinese-Australian, the work tracks her assimilation and adoption of the influences of her surroundings in the way she uses the Australian landscape and flora as her inspiration. Motifs resembling structural aspects of Australian flora and colours of the Australian landscape imbue Heartlines with a layered infusion of colours, forms, and patterns by monoprinting on both sides of the translucent hosho paper foldings. These Australian motifs and patterns mimic and recall the lengths of traditional textiles of batik-sarongs and kain-lepas of her family heirlooms which hold within them motifs and patterns of stories, culture and societal implications. Alongside the form of the sarong and kain-lepas, the composition of monoprints assimilates the subconscious formation of a banksia, each print adding to its symbolic form.
The banksia exists not only as a plant of which is endemic to Perth-Boorloo but also an emblem of the Australian landscape. Amidst the landscape of motifs and patterns in these sculptural paper forms, a visible tracing of lines is incorporated throughout each folding, making symbolic connections between the homeland and birthland. Referencing these cultural forms of clothing in Heartlines, Thornton-Smith connects the notion of cultural hybridity in the face of one’s own identity, heritage, culture, and landscape.
Three Coastal Scenes is a triptych of linocut works depicting interactions between humans and the aquatic world — a multifaceted relationship. We are often in awe of marine creatures; equally we are also often threatened by them. Sea creatures are largely a mystery to us due to their mostly “unseen” nature under the waves. I have represented three fishing scenes depicting our awe-inspired yet intimidated feelings towards marine animals, one man holds a large stingray, leering the creature’s barb; two men hold up a Tasmanian King Crab, holding it up to the sky, in wonder and in fear; one man tussles with a swordfish, both of their mouths agape.
All three marine animals I have carved can be found in waters of lutruwita/Tasmania. As an island state we have a unique connection with our waters and the marine population who inhabit them. As the Western world grows increasingly anthropocentric, we grow distant from understanding and admiring our aquatic animals, who are feeling the pressure of climate change. Three Coastal Scenes works to highlight humans’ complex relationship with marine animals — a relationship worth cherishing.
etching,
55 cm x 132 cm
Walking, breathing, walking. Rhythm and movement are in play as I walk Pipe Clay Lagoon; a place with which I feel an intimate connection. My immersive experience of walking the lagoon amongst the saltmarshes reminds me of a symphony where my body and mind are in tune with my surroundings, I feel grounded. It is this active engagement with space and location of the tidal line where my sensory awareness is being experienced.
The repetition of the drawn line is a key factor of evoking rhythm and movement, a line may look like a consistent direction but the line is never straight highlighting the pattern, shape and texture of the contours of the landscape.
‘Walking’ ideally is a state in which the mind, the body and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in a conversation together’. (Rebecca Solnit)
Through the act and process of walking and drawing I am part of the entanglement, part of ‘place’.
Transitory Story is a large-scale linocut artwork that endeavors to depict everyday scenes of Narrm Melbourne, Australia (Kulin nations), through the lens of migration. It captures easily recognisable events and situations in urban public spaces, reflecting cultural and political movements, places, and historical moments within Melbourne society. This artwork bridges personal and social experiences through handcrafted graphic work using traditional reproduction methods. Emphasising the documentation of customs and cultural amalgamations, it explores a territory inhabited by diverse social groups—including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, migrants, and individuals of diverse sexualities, religions, and political beliefs. The title, Transitory Story, alludes to the “Lira Popular,” a literary and graphic style employed in 19th-century Chile. This style served to communicate with a public possessing limited reading skills, addressing widespread illiteracy. Similarly, the artwork aims to make its imagery easily recognisable through simple strokes and direct speech, thereby broadening access, interest, and participation in society. It challenges the traditional elitism associated with galleries and museums, transforming them into cultural spaces accessible to everyone. The artwork nods to the artist’s personal stories since arriving in Melbourne in 2018. It traces characters, places of interest, and, importantly, the multitude of cultures embraced in the pursuit of finding a space to develop graphic artwork. Transitory Story thus becomes a visual narrative, weaving together the artist’s journey and the diverse cultural tapestry of Melbourne.
Industrial Idyl #2 represents the culmination of a series of monotypes informed by the industrial foreshore of Corio. The images explore the environmental impact of heavy industry balanced against the ‘Boy’s Own’ fascination with enterprise writ large.
The concertina form allows for the creation of an extended visual narrative and the surface of the monotypes adds a tactile feel to the book.
Pressure-point
Lois Waters (she/her) is an artist and paper conservator, living and working on Gadigal Wangal land. As a HoH artist and hearing aid user, she uses printmaking and textile processes to capture ongoing shifts in her perception of sound. She is interested in what materials can and can’t do, as a parallel for the limits and possibilities of the body. Gently undulating, dissolving or bent and strange, her images and forms reference amplified sounds she experiences: eyelids closing and parting, bones shifting over one another, or fabric moving across skin.
In Pleat 4, she uses hand-pleated silk as a modular printing plate, exploring what can be achieved in printmaking through considered use of simple resources. Through simple but carefully controlled pressure-printing, the moments of collapse in the silk surface and its fine weave produce tones and textures reminiscent of aquatint. Printed on fine kozo paper and carefully lined onto board using paper conservation techniques, the final image sits somewhere between surface, object and simulation. This work explores what is lost and gained through information transfer: the printed impression takes on new resonance, with fidelity to something beyond the original matrix.
45 cm x 200 cm x 5 cm
A/P / 1
This artist book is a love letter that explores the marks and stains that grief leaves behind. Each page represents a linocut whose surface is embedded in the geography of my heart using delicate lines and marks. Printed with intaglio inks on kitakata paper the work echoes the landscape of my body. Hand printed and sewn into a scroll, sometimes torn and restitched into a new entity, the scars of its creation are on show.
The hut is a humble, functional structure, designed to provide shelter and withstand the elements relevant to its environment. It does not seek to define the landscape but embodies its surroundings. Built using various materials by the hands of those who have experienced the landscape first hand for generations.
For many years, I have enjoyed venturing into the bush. Either for the day or multiple days at a time. Finding solitude, being humbled by the challenges of the walk, and feeling elated by the perseverance it requires. Huts have allowed me to become completely immersed within the landscape, providing shelter and creating a sense of sanctuary.
Kitchen Hut is located within Cradle Mountain National Park. This particular hut is a favourite of mine due to it’s practical design and functionality. Kitchen Hut was built with a second door located half way up from the ground. This door allows access during heavy snow fall also offers an external shovel for anyone needing to dig their way in or out.
Joanne WILD
Beyond the Smokebush (detail) 2024 Ecoprinted
When two souls joined together one Winter Forest leaves impressed upon each. Through enduring fire and water Experiences were shared. They were kept warm in wool. Look for the Dancer She is transforming.
I try to emphasize the singularity and silence of a natural forms. I love nursing the life of an image from nature out of its pitch black womb into hope - in the form of light – the process has a primordial spiritual magic. The Mezzotint Print technique and tools have argely remained unchanged for the last 300 years. The process achieves tonality by roughening the metal plate with a metal tool, a rocker. The small teeth of the rocker create tiny burrs that hold ink during the printing process. The rocked areas that are left will produce a rich black print, areas that have been burnished (knocking the burrs down) will hold less ink, producing lighter values. This process produces an image with a high level of tonal richness.
This piece of work explores the act of remembering. A tour of the iconic Alhambra site in Granada, Spain in 2008 had a profound impact on my practice at the time. As I now revisit the experience in my mind, I recall the welcome surprise of coming across the fully laden orange trees outside, after the intensity of so much beautiful Islamic pattern within the buildings.
I have reflected on the fragility of memory and how we unwittingly store and preserve selected experiences from the past while filtering out others we no longer need.
