Getting to know our members: Denise Scholz-Wulfing

Denise has lived and worked in Europe and has travelled extensively throughout Asia, but she has always returned to her home in Sydney. After completing a B.A. in Visual Art from COFA in 1983, she continued her art practice, moving from painting and drawing to printmaking, (specifically etching) over the last 15 years. 

Her work is figurative and narrative in style and draws inspiration from her travels and the art that she had seen during those travels. She has taken particular delight in, and has been inspired by, the work of artists such as Pieter Bruegel and William Hogarth. She finds further inspiration in the world around her and uses various narratives to explore ideas, feelings and emotions. 

Her most recent etchings are strongly influenced by the purchase of land in the country and, while still populated by people, the images explore the bush, its landscape, iconography and symbolism.

Please visit the Artist’s page to see the range of her work: https://sydneyprintmakers.com.au/portfolio/denise-scholz-wulfing/

Denise describes her Practice:

My printmaking practice has developed over the years as I have refined my etching technique. My approach to etching is traditional, working with copper and zinc plates, and acid or ferric chloride. After applying a hard ground to the plate I then scratch the image onto the plate, I do this many times to develop the line work and in doing so the tonal contrast of my images. I then refine the image by adding aquatint to increase the tonal value. Generally, I work in black and white or sepia on a cream paper for the drama, contrast and clarity that this brings to my prints.

For me etching is the ideal tool to develop my drawn ideas. I have long admired the work of figurative artists who are moral or social and commentators. These artist/printmakers such a Pieter Bruegel, William Hogarth, William Blake and Francisco Goya, use drawing as a central part of their practice creating ‘stages’ on which their characters play. Often inspired directly by these artists I reference Biblical or mythological stories and combine them with personal imagery to give my etched images an extra dimension. 

Over the past few years I have increasingly used the landscape and natural environment as a metaphor for issues which are foremost in society, such as climate change and environmental degradation.

I continue the search for the ideal combination of subject and form, experimenting lately with collaging and reworking old prints into mixed media constructions.