PCA Print Bash!

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For our Interstate subscribers – but soon, there will be more print fun coming for Sydney!

Join us for an unforgettable afternoon of art and advocacy

at the PCA PRINT BASH 2024!

Show your support for the Print Council of Australia at this exciting fundraising event, hosted by The Art Room, Footscray. Immerse yourself in a celebration of print culture with live performances by The Press Gang and John Ryrie, while enjoying a drink and some nibbles. Engage in the thrill of our silent print auction, featuring treasures from the PCA archives and other exquisite works generously donated by local artists. Don’t miss your chance to scoop up some exclusive merch and win a prize at the raffle, including vouchers and products generously donated by the Firestation Print Studio, Melbourne Etching Supplies and Baldessin Press.

Let’s come together to ensure PCA can continue it’s vital mission of supporting 
Australian Printmaking!

Protests and Pranks: Student Activism and Pranks from UNSW Archives

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Photograph by Neilton Clarke of UNSW (AMCAE / City Art Institute / COFA) art students protest march through Hyde Park to CBD against earmarked introduction of student fees, c.1980-81.

Drawing on material from UNSW Records & Archives, Protests & Pranks traces a history of student-led protests and Foundation Day pranks at UNSW. The exhibition features posters, photos, videos, oral histories, and protest ephemera, including badges, t-shirts, and pamphlets.

Some of us might recognise ourselves in these photographs!

When:

26 February – 14 June 2024
 

Where:

Level 5 Main Library
Law Library
Paddington Library

Partner:

UNSW Records & Archives
 

Protests & Pranks, for the first time, will span all three UNSW Libraries. At UNSW Main Library, the exhibition shifts between global and hyperlocal protest movements. Protests & Pranks reveals how students mobilise to effect change, from the worldwide campaigns against the Vietnam War to student demonstrations in response to university policies. UNSW Law Library features tactical frivolity, the playful, non-compliant side of student resistance that manifested in pranks and stunts designed to provoke and challenge authority. The display at UNSW Paddington Library contains materials from recent climate rallies and political demonstrations to show how students utilise protests as a form of activism to bring about reform. 

The exhibition features photos, videos, oral histories, newspaper clippings, and protest ephemera, including posters, badges, and pamphlets. These materials help to piece together the shared concerns, movements, and cultural identity of UNSW.

Accessibility: UNSW Main Library, UNSW Law Library, and UNSW Paddington Library are wheelchair accessible. The exhibition will include large-text artwork labels and booklets, audio-described guides, and braille exhibition guides.

Posters for Climarte

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Anthea Boesenberg and Anna Russell, together with Rhonda Nelson have been successful in their submission for Climarte’s poster project with this ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’ poster with a nod to Spike Milligan. The posters will be pasted up across Melbourne over the next few weeks, together with 9 other posters from other artists.

Go HERE to read about the project.

Rhonda Nelson with the posters.

Relaunch of our Artists Page

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Anna Russell has been hard at work setting out and reorganising our Artists portfolios on the Artists page, with bigger and better slide shows of your prints.

Please go and check it out. Your feedback is welcome, both positive and negative.

Anna will be contacting artists by email over the next little while for further information from you for the website and blog. Please wait until you are contacted.

Invitation from The Black Hand Gang: A Post Covid Opportunity?

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Black Hand Gang is based in Bali, Indonesia, and was established back in the ‘heady care-free’ pre-covid days of early 2020.  It is the leading printmaking facility in Indonesia and has 1.5 years worth of collaborations with artists creating a great portfolio of printed works.

Black Hand Gang have managed to be the flag-bearer for ‘fine art print’ in Indonesia and helped to elevate the medium and have captured the interest and imagination of the art community in Indonesia.

We’ve found liaising with printmaking studios/communities around the world is a great way to connect and see what opportunities may arise.

We are seeking printmakers to come and be a part of our studio.  We have local Indonesian printmakers but would love to explore the opportunity for International printmakers too.  We are open minded and rather than impose a formal structure for how this might happen, are just leaving it as a casual enquiry for people to get in touch, share their resume/ portfolio and then discuss what they are looking for and see if there is some way to make a match.  Could be short term guests or longer term involvement, just exploring to find middle to senior printmakers who see the value and potential of the opportunity here in Bali.  There are more details for candidates if they apply.

We thought you may know anyone or would pass the word about the opportunity – your support to share the word is appreciated with great thanks.

Press Release, Catalogue, & Printmakers Opportunity Post

More information on the Black Hand Gang website: www.blackhandgang.id

Join the Print Council of Australia

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Established in 1966, for over 50 years the Print Council of Australia has promoted and supported contemporary artists working in print media, and advocated for the appreciation of printmaking as a vital and vibrant field of creative endeavour in the Australian context. This advocacy extends to related practices such as artist books and zines, and the broader field of works on paper.

The Print Council of Australia (PCA) is a national not-for-profit member organisation. They publish Imprint, the quarterly art magazine dedicated to contemporary printmaking in Australia and beyond.

It has members from throughout Australia and overseas, including artists, students, arts institutions, galleries, universities, schools and collectors.

The PCA receives NO funding and absolutely relies on membership to raise the funds to pay their hard working staff, pay overheads and produce IMPRINT magazine. Without members the PCA cannot exist. 

As a national, not-for-profit organisation, the PCA has Committee Representatives in each state and territory, activating the Australian print community at a grass roots level. The Print Council of Australia has an open membership policy with no restrictions on joining.

From $77.00 a year (including GST), this is what you get from membership of PCA:

  • Subscription to IMPRINT, the quarterly art magazine dedicated to printmaking, artist books, zines and works on paper. (Four issues per year)
  • Free promotion for your exhibitions ‘Australia in Print’ in IMPRINT, in the
  • monthly e-newsletters and social media platforms. Visit the Member Exhibition Submission page for more info.
  • Opportunities for artists including the annual PCA Print Commission and the biennial PCA Print Exchange project.
  • Stay connected to what is happening in the world of print through information about awards and opportunities.
  • Opportunities to purchase prints at member rates in the annual PCA Print Commission program.
  • Exclusive discounts at various art suppliers, framers and workshops.
  • Exclusive events such as curator talks and collection tours.
  • Voting rights: the PCA is a membership organisation, as a member you have the right to vote at our Annual General Meeting as well as nominating for and electing national Committee Representatives.

MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTION

From: $77.00 inc GST / year

Renew your membership of the Print Council or join up here.

For membership enquiries or other information, contact the PCA office on 03 9416 0150 or

 generalmanager@printcouncil.org.au.

Grishin’s Art Blog, on the 60th Anniversary of Sydney Printmakers and the crisis facing Australian printmakers.

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The latest edition of Sasha Grishin’s Art Blog deals with our current 60th Anniversary Exhibition at Manly Art Gallery and Museum. Always worth a read, this is Blog number 61.

Go HERE to read.    

Image: Roslyn Kean, Defining the Edge,2021, wrapped multi block woodcut, diptych, U/S, 558 x163cm (framed), courtesy of the artist.             

Lea Kannar-Lichtenberger’s Residency at Sea.

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  1. Art at Sea with Schmidt Ocean Institue

 

Things have been a bit hectic in my world this year… what a change from last years time of reflection during shutdowns. With my recent journey being out of my reach due to shutdown it was refreshing in February to finally make it over the Qld border and be ensconced away in a COVID safe bubble on board a research vessel in the Coral Sea Marine Park for a 30 dayresidency.

 

The RV Falkor is the flagship of SOI the Schmidt Ocean Institute, they have an ‘Artist at Sea’ program which is an amazing experience being given the opportunity to work alongside scientists, using the latest in deep sea mapping or ROV (remote operated vehicle) technology to explore our ocean worlds. My journey on a mapping expedition was one of calm seas and expansive views which gave me time to create works that reflected the research being carried out.

I was so unsure of what I could do on this trip that I took a mini studio with me,

a range of drawing materials including a 10m roll of Japanese bamboo paper, a few sheets of Arches, and a 10m roll of rice paper (fitting neatly inside the other), not to mention my pastels, watercolours and acrylics, along with relief inks, rollers, a baren and solar plates.

Inspiration was easy and one significant revelation was the images from the sea floor mapping that was taking place. A Bathymetric Multi Beam Sonar was collecting data of what was below the ship and in the majority of times kilometres below. This open source project is part of an international plan to map the worlds oceans by 2030. These images became the motivation behind my ritual of daily drawings, from the computer generated image

 

to my interpretation in graphite.

 

 

How could you not find this invisible world fascinating? However, it was not just the individual images that were blowing my mind, it was the patterns that our journey was making across the sea floor as each day we exposed the sea floor and mounts sometimes kms in height. I was so glad that I brought along some solar plates to translate the drawn line.These were (and proved to be) the best option, as I figured that anything that involved sharp objects like lino or wood could become lethal if the ship lurched suddenly and as there are chemical disposal issues at sea some other plate types that I had to hand would not be appropriate. Not to mention that having space for a mini press for dry point may not have been practical, solar was what I saw as the way to go.

It was like a revelation to see how our mapping had developed by the halfway point. The layering was to become my muse and that with the help of fellow traveller and scientist Alysha Johnson would take my ideas to the next level. We expand these images on the computer to 80x their real height to create this image of our trip so far.

Such exciting visuals! But I was in the middle of the Coral Sea, and that had its own quirks.The beautiful clean air and strong sunlight created a time exposure issue in exposing the solar plates. The sun is so intense here that having been used to doing exposures around the 3min mark for the midday sun at home, it took a few test plates to finally settle on a 40 sec exposure time at 10am.

Yet this was not my only issue, that clear air and sunlight also penetrated my drawn image using a sharpie. It was just not dense enough to block this sun, so my exposures were bleeding through so after a bit of trial and error I finally resorted to using a paint pen to get a solid enough image that still had the feel of the drawn line.

Time Amplified is a series of prints that I did for those that I travelled with, 33 prints one for each person on board. Other layers I am still working on but having ended up with 4 workable plates for relief printing whilst on board, it was so much fun.

My drawings ranged from the daily drawings (seen earlier) to a Japanese book as well as a 10m mechanical drawing (on Japanese Bamboo paper) that used the ships movement to create the marks.

 

It excited me to be so flexible to work with paintings, prints and drawings on this voyage. Ithas left me with an extensive body of work, one that is still growing. My hope is that this will form part of a future exhibition, I will keep you posted.

Cheers

Lea