The purpose of this entry is 1. write a report about my visit as documentation for my study unit, and 2. to record some personal notes for future reference to the artists and work I saw, things that will help me remember them and the notable things we discussed. Two or three of the artists have done pre and post-grad studies at ANU, all were extremely positive in talking about their experience, one saying I will definitely have no regrets if I studied there (not that anyone can guarantee anything like that of course, but I understand what she meant). They were
Artists I met:
- Nicola Dickson
- Rose Montebello
- Andrea McCuaig
- Ella Whateley
- Sacha Nixon
- Meelan Oh
- Elizabeth Faul
- Di Broomhall
- Kerry Shepherdson
- Derek O'connor
- Barbara van der Linden
- Fauna and flora from discovery era overlaid with screenprinted patterns native to the explorer home-countries, eg Damask for French explorers, English patterns for British explorers etc.
- Patterns on background too, delicate tints or shades of background colour
- how explorers saw the new animals/birds/native people tinted with the patterns and mindsets of their own culture
- photocopied paper collage, circular, stuck with glue strips rather than fluid glue
- haven;t had an exhib recently, having a quiter time...feeling a bit worried
- pypsteel studio, s/w blokkies vloer, her own
- expressive, bold strokes and colours
- huge canvasses, started painting on unstretched to save space
- background in colour theory makes colour choice instinctive and informed
- Sy's n believer! Great to meet another passionate Christian artist who communicates her faith in her work!
- hard edge abstraction, freehand, acrylic, no retarder!
- She says lines are primal, colour choice according to theme: resurrection: blood, bruises
- Printmaker, etching, aquaint?
- They show me plates, explain the process, show me tools
- Exhibition in Form early next year
- charcoal botanics
- she talks just like Sally A!
- Going to exhibit late brother's work in Belconnen later this year
- not trained
- birds and fish on old calligraphy paper that she had written during lessons in London 20 years ago
- environmental themes, rubbish i the oceans etc
- group exhib in Melb coming early next year at Brunswick street gallery, they invited entries, very affordable
- Underpaint with acrylic, colourful, expressive, layering in almost illegible hand-scribbled wording
- then overpainting in thick, roughly textured but very light and delicately coloured oils (whites, creams), adding pastels and scraffito for more texture
- She shows me some ceramic work, and explains how she learned about glazes from ceramics- beautiful, textured, flat green pot with darker green glaze which settled crystal-like in the grooves
9. Kerry Shepherdson
- repetitive patterns, mostly abstract but some images (birds of paradise, herself in her art world)
- translates her experience of what she sees into pattern and colour
- abstract painting on WWII book covers, framed in white
- paint scrapers hanging neatly on wall
- brushes clean and tidy in drawers, acrylic paints in 'silicone' tubes!
- very well-planned storage space, back wall doubling as gallery space and storing large canvasses
- recent exhib in Sydney
- portraits!
- series of 30 Canberra personalities, compiled in a book, some I have seen before
- dark blue backgrounds, lifts the light colours!
- she is very tired after the open day but graciously humours my presence and gives me some green paint to paint on the day's community piece! I check that it is acrylic and then get right in with my hands :)
- As with other colourful canvasses standing around (some that her kids painted), she considers the patterns and colours and seeks for emerging images, which she then paints over with a semi-transparent white to create lovely textured, layered pieces. One with girl&hair flying to the right particularly interest me, whimsical and light, but with deeper emotional memory in the form of coloured layers underneath.