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Exhibiting since 1961

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Review of Borderless by Sasha Grishin in the Canberra Times

October 3, 2019 by Anthea Boesenberg Leave a Comment

Sydney Printmakers: Borderless. Megalo Print Gallery, 21 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston. Until November 2. megalo.org.

Printmaking is probably the most collaborative of all of the major art mediums. Shared facilities and shared expertise have characterised printmaking since its earliest days and many printmakers see themselves as part of an extended network of professional artists.

Roslyn Kean, Weaving Ancestral Voices II in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

Roslyn Kean, Weaving Ancestral Voices II in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

In the almost 60 years of its existence, Sydney Printmakers has included most of the major printmakers of the time and the situation has not changed.

Today, there are about 60 members in Sydney Printmakers, 33 of whom are included in this exhibition. It is an exceptionally rich and diverse show with some brilliant work.

As a sweeping generalisation, Sydney printmaking, as epitomised here, is becoming far less new-media driven and more artists focus on analogue techniques. Woodcuts, linocuts, etchings plus the occasional screenprint hold sway, while digital and inkjet prints are the exception. It may be foolhardy to leap to conclusions on the basis of this exhibition, but it appears that digital technologies are being increasingly absorbed into the toolbox of Australian printmakers rather than being seen as an end product. Many may employ computers to formulate an image but employ traditional technologies to realise the final print.

The exhibition is dominated by some brilliant and ambitious woodcuts worked on a large scale by established masters, including Roslyn Kean, Susan Rushforth, Anthea Bosenberg, Angela Hayson and Helen Mueller. Rew Hanks is represented by one of his unbelievably detailed narrative linocuts, Josephine’s Ark (2019), while Graham Marchant’s linocut, The Cranford Rose Garden (2015-18), has an intriguing complexity produced through a deceptive simplicity of means.

Seraphina Martin, Finding solace in the land, 2019 in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

Seraphina Martin, Finding solace in the land, 2019 in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

It is exciting how some of the “elders” of the printmaking tribe are branching out in new directions. Seraphina Martin’s Finding solace in the land (2019) is a light and highly evocative etching with watercolour, while Susan Baran’s huge tour de force Allure (2019) is a complex piece where she has collaged etchings and relief prints into a rippling, intricate composition.

One beauty of printmaking is its sense of intimacy through which it can convey an artist’s personality. Examples include the refined lyrical sensibility of Tanya Crothers’ collagraph Black Springs re-visited (2019), Wendy Stokes’ delicate Blended geographies (2019) combining relief, monoprint and stencil, Salvatore Gerardi’s striking Pervading memories: shadow lines (2019) or Andrew Totman’s spatially ambiguous floating monoprint, Touch (2018).

There are also some of the classics of Sydney printmaking, such as Barbara Davidson’s etching collagraph Voters and parliamentarians (2019) with its humour and brilliance of observation, and Bernhardine Mueller’s All the rivers run? (2018) with its dry humour and a created personal narrative.

Nina Juniper, Self supporting #1, 2019, in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

Nina Juniper, Self supporting #1, 2019, in Sydney Printmakers at Megalo. Picture: Supplied

There is a strong, punchy inkjet print by Marta Romer, Borderless (2019) and a bold, inventive screenprint by Nina Juniper, Self supporting #1 (2019), that depicts a crumbling industrial site she has screenprinted on a block of concrete. Her print conveys a range of possible readings with effective humour.

This is an exciting, adventurous exhibition that demonstrates that printmaking in Sydney is in ascendancy.

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Filed Under: Exhibitions Tagged With: analogue, Borderless, digital, Kingston, Linocut, Megalo Print Studio, Nina Juniper, printmaking, Roslyn Kean, Sasha Grishin, Seraphina Martin, woodcut

Sydney Printmakers @ Australian Print Triennial

November 16, 2018 by sydprint Leave a Comment

 

Congratulations to the members of Sydney Printmakers who had works selected for the APT Print Award:

Rew Hanks, Roslyn Kean, Michael Kempson, Helen Mueller, Janet Parker Smith and Anne Starling.

And for The APT Emerging Artists Award:

Olivia Wilson.

Filed Under: Print Prizes, Print Symposium Tagged With: Anne Starling, APT Print Award, Australian Print Triennial, Emerging Artists Award., Helen Mueller, Janet Parker Smith, Michael Kempson, Mildura, Olivia Wilson, Rew Hanks, Roslyn Kean

International Mokuhanga Conference 2017

September 28, 2017 by sydprint Leave a Comment

 

The juried international exhibition Beauty of Mokuhanga: Discipline & Sensibilityis being held at the Univeristy of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) from 21 Aug – 1 Oct, as part of the 3rd International Mokuhanga Conference 2017 (IMC2017 Hawaii). It features 107 woodblock prints and hand-printed books and includes the work of 11 Australian artists:
Neilton Clarke, John Crawford, Jolanta Ewart, Jacqueline F Gribbin, Roslyn Kean, Terry McKenna, Deborah Metz, Susan Rushforth, Margaret White, Lana Wilding,
Trish Yates.

Congratulations to members Neilton Clarke, Roslyn Kean, Susan Rushforth.

Filed Under: Conferences, Exhibitions Tagged With: Discipline, Hawaii, Mokuhanga Conference, Neilton Clarke, Roslyn Kean, Sensibility, Susan Rushforth, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Hida – Takayama Contemporary Woodblock Prints Triennale 2017

March 18, 2017 by sydprint 1 Comment

Susan Rushforth and Roslyn Kean have made it through to the second round for this highly prestigious exhibition.

Filed Under: Exhibitions Tagged With: Japan, Mokuhanga, Roslyn Kean, Susan Rushforth, woodcut

Printed in Australia at Spot 81

August 5, 2016 by sydprint Leave a Comment

 

You are invited to PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA at Spot81
PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA

Book launch & Exhibition

3 – 14 August

Drinks with the artists and book launch Saturday 6 August, 3 to 5pm

PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA is designed and published by 10 Group, with a foreword by Akky van Ogtrop, Curator & art historian and President of the Print Council of Australia

SPOT81
81 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale, NSW, 2008
T 61 2 9690 0655
E  info@spot81.com   W  spot81.comGallery Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 11am – 5pmDirector: Michelle Perry
The book and exhibition feature works by
INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS
Suzanne Archer, Terry Barrett, Kate Briscoe, Ruth Burgess, Seong Cho, Neilton Clarke, Charles Cooper, Christina Cordero, Barbara A Davidson, David Fairbairn, Mirabel Fitzgerald, Helen Geier, Robyn Gordon, Craig Gough, Roslyn Kean, Wendy Kelly, Michael Kempson, Jasper Knight, Graham Kuo, Alun Leach-Jones, Sandra Leveson, Dianne Longley, Seraphina Martin, John Robinson, Luke Sciberras, Martin Sharp, Ben Soedradjit, Wendy Stavrianos, Madeleine Tuckfield-Carrano, Mark Ward, Madeleine Winch, Tim Winters
WORKSHOPS & SOCIETIES
Agave Print Studio, Basil Hall Editions, Cicada Press, Falls Gallery Editions, Grip Editions, Marnling Press, Open Bite Printmakers, Sydney Printmakers, Whaling Road Studio
Works shown above, clockwise from top left, are by Michael Kempson, Linda Galbraith, Anne Starling, Salvatore Gerardi, David Fairbairn and Kate BriscoeAs part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Print Council of Australia, 2016 is designated the ‘Year of Print’, a special year, commemorating the history of printmaking in Australia since the 1960s.  It is therefore a very opportune moment to celebrate this publication on innovative printmaking and printmakers.In the early twentieth century printmaking was rarely seen as an artist’s main focus. Instead it tended to be a peripheral activity, secondary to painting or sculpture. This changed in the 1960s and 70s.  Frequently referred to as the decade when the print came of age, the 1960s witnessed the emergence of printmaking as a mainstream art form in Australia, when printmaking in the art world moved to centre stage.  A large touring exhibition, the Australian Print Survey 1963, was the culmination of these explorative years. Organised by the then Senior Curator of Australian Art, Daniel Thomas AM, for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition was seen by both artists and the public as the official acceptance of printmaking by the art and collecting world.This development encouraged artists to explore the potential of printmaking and use it to produce works which represented major breakthroughs as creative statements, placing print, arguably for the first time, as a primary means of expression. It meant that the boundaries that once defined printmaking began to blur. From the experiments of the 1960s,  printmaking developed in many new directions.Recognizing that prints are a natural extension of their existing practices, many of the artists featured in this publication have taken advantage of new ideas and technologies. The print medium  became a  central part of their activity, the equal of their output in other media, conceived as integral or complementary to it.

I hope that this publication will raise awareness in the culture of printmaking as a more visible art form  than ever before.

Akky van Ogtrop
Art Historian / Curator

Also, join us in the gallery for a glass of wine and final viewing of Emanuel Raft’s beautifully evocative exhibition, The Noise of Silence, this Sunday 31 August from 4pm

Shown above: ‘Untitled No 5’, Acrylic on canvas, 106 x 106cm

Copyright © 2016 Spot81, All rights reserved.

 

Filed Under: Exhibitions, Publication Tagged With: Barbara A. Davidson, Chippendale, Christina Cordero, Exhibition and book launch, Madeleine Tuckfield-Carrano, Michael Kempson, Neilton Clarke, Roslyn Kean, Ruth Burgess, Seraphina Martin, Spot 81, Sydney Printmakers

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