Carmen Ky: Five Elements @ Humble House Gallery, Fyshwick, A.C.T.
Getting to know our members: Carmen Ky
As a student at the National Art School in the 1960’s I was introduced to Taoist philosophy and discovered Indian tantric art. At that time, I didn’t realize the influence this would have on me.
After graduation I exhibited paintings and taught at TAFE for many years. Then I studied and professionally practiced Traditional Chinese Acupuncture for ten years alongside my art practice. Working with subtle energy systems of Five Element Acupuncture, naturally influenced my artwork.
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s I worked as a stills photographer on documentary film and book projects with Aboriginal elders and began to see expression of that elemental energy in their stories, song-lines and country, this changed the way I viewed landscape.
Some photographic projects that personally influenced me were the documentary “Flight of the Windhorse” about the first Australian Himalayan hot-air ballooning expedition in Nepal in 1985 (my introduction to Tibetan Buddhism). Photo research and photography for the book “Burnum Burnum’s Aboriginal Australia – A Traveller’s Guide” produced for the Bi-Centenary in 1988. The documentary “Kakadu Man” about Bill Neidjie, of the Bunitj clan Gagudju language group of northern Kakadu in 1990. (he invited me back to draw and paint his country).
In 1992, two favourite assignments as photographer were for the Sydney visit of the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and photographing the handover ceremony for the remains of Mungo Lady at Lake Mungo, both in 1992.
Lake Mungo, like Kakadu, became a place that draws me back and I have produced and exhibited paintings, drawings, etchings and photographs from these places over the years. I always took a sketch pad, pencils, inks and crayons with me to sketch during breaks from photographing. Back home in the studio, many paintings, works on paper, experiments with etching and chine-colle came about because of these projects and journeys. Initially I worked with painting, printmaking and photography as individual practices, now I equally enjoy mixed media.
In 2000, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory included me in their exhibition “Artists in the Field: A Retrospective’ and bought one of my drawings for their collection.
In 2001, the Manly Art Gallery and Museum presented a survey show of my work based on 13 years of desert journeys called “Alchemic Wilderness: a survey 1988 – 2001- Lake Mungo, Desert and Kakadu”. It included photographs, drawings, etchings and paintings. They acquired an etching for their collection.
I decided to investigate Tibetan Buddhist ideas of the Five Elements as a portal into concepts of landscape, (including Australian Indigenous) for the Master of Philosophy, Visual Arts Graduate Program at ANU. I completed five bodies of work from landscapes as diverse as Lake Mungo (earth) Mystery Bay (water) Central Western Desert (fire,) Glasshouse Mountains (air) and Space as the fundamental basis of all the elements … inner space, outer space, the bardo, pictorial space, mind space. Chinese, Indian and Tibetan cultures have variations in their philosophical and visual traditions of the Five Elements. This was an opportunity to examine the diverse knowledge systems and spiritual practices I have engaged in over many years and explore how my Buddhist practice interfaces with the methodology of my art practice. I actively reviewed my painting practice as a contemplative art practice and investigated traditional and contemporary Australian, European and Tibetan artists. This research became part of my exegesis titled “Contemplation and Immersion: Exploring the Five Elements and Australian Landscape” awarded in 2020. My work is suffused with Buddhist philosophy and overlaid with environmental concern.
To see more of Carmen’s work go HERE.
Artists in Conversation with the Exhibition Curator, Katherine Roberts, Manly Art Gallery and Museum: Carmen Ky.
How does your work address the theme ‘to the edges’?
Consisting of six connecting panels, each one complete also in its own right, this work is thematically concerned with edges. Titled Rainforest Meets the Sea connects my current environment: a narrow coastal strip at the edge of the Royal National Park, nestled under the Illawarra Escarpment to the South Coast of NSW. My home and studio adjoin remains of subtropical rainforest with a short walk to the ocean. Here the edges of the land meet the sea, feeding into the concept of To the Edges.
Always living next to large bodies of water and in bushland, I inhabit and respond to natural elemental environments. The ambience of the natural elements reaffirms my research into the philosophy of the Five Elements as interpreted in Tibetan Buddhism and takes my work to the edges of Eastern philosophy and Western art. This was further explored in my Master of Philosophy degree completed at ANU in 2020.
Can you describe the technical process you went through to achieve the finished work and what technical challenges you encountered along the way?
For this project I pushed my printmaking to the edges of becoming a painting by including a few of the mediums that I employ when painting: watercolour, collage and encaustic wax. Starting with washes of watercolour, I then printed collograph shapes reminiscent of sea weeds or tree trunks, next I tore my etchings into evocative shapes suggestive of deep-sea creatures or rainforest forms and collaged them into the work. This was followed by painting a series of white spheres and ovals to add connecting sparks of light in each panel.
I love using encaustic wax when painting, however a challenge in applying it to paper is that it becomes partly absorbed while using a heat gun to spread the wax and thus changes the tone of the paper. Firstly, I stabilized the paper by gluing it to well-sealed boards and defined the shapes that I wanted to remain white by applying white paint to those areas. eg: the white spheres. This incurs another small challenge: painting white on white paper, makes it hard to evaluate the spatial depth of the work … until the wax is burned in. The whole process is labour intensive and the encaustic wax is toxic, so it involves wearing a protective mask. However, the resulting smooth protective coating produces a beautiful luminous quality to the work.
What do you see as the role of Sydney Printmakers for the next 60 years?
I see the Sydney Printmakers continuing as a platform for members to exhibit and embracing new members and methods of print and supporting change.
How do you see the role of printmaking, in general, contributing to the conversation about contemporary art practice?
Printmaking will always be a part of contemporary art practice as an embedded tradition constantly changing to accommodate new approaches and media.