A Girl Waiting - BookArtObject

I have posted off the first three copies of my BookArtObject artist's book, A Girl Waiting.  Six more to go!  Details of the project can be seen here.
So here are a few images...can't really show any more until I've sent off the others. Linocuts of places the girl might be waiting, obsessively typed reasons and the girl silhouettes all derive from Art History.

Jackie Gorring @ The Light Factory Gallery in Eltham

Just a very quick post to share a couple of images from Jackie Gorring's exhibition Balkote - zing up life, which finishes this Sunday. Jackie is a printmaker who I first met six years ago at the 6th Australian Print Symposium at The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. I ran into her again at a Print Council of Australia forum in Hobart a couple of years ago and discovered that she had moved from NSW to central Victoria.  I have been fascinated by her inventive low-tech printmaking methods, many of which utilise found material such as polystyrene, packaging and pipe cleaners as matrix.
This body of work was made during an artist residency at Ragini Art Village in Balkote, a few kilometres from Katmandu, late last year.
For more information http://thelightfactorygallery.com.au/exhibitions/current-upcoming-exhibitions/jackie-gorring-printmaker/

Zing up life relief print on canvas

Installation shot - Teeth over Katmandu and Spiralia spiralia, both relief prints on canvas



Watsup relief print on canvas

 

Leftovers

Just printed my edition of 5 x 7" linocut prints for the Leftovers IV print exchange.  Has to be posted by Friday.  Hoping it dries in time!

Some of the edition of Egyptian goddess cat (with Raoul Dufy stripes).

It relates to the series A Taxonomy of (Art History) cats on which I'm currently working. 

 This is a hybrid.

 

My press is up and running!

I bought a second hand etching press two or three months ago but it's taken me all this time to clear a space to set it up to work in.  Finally there!!  There's barely enough room here, but works for the time being.

I have been working away slowly this year with not a great deal to show - cutting lino plates for my artist's book for BAO Edition 4, A girl waiting.  Now the press is up and running I've started printing them. These are some of the places the girl might be waiting.  The girl and her reason for waiting to come.

  I think I'm going to love having my own press!

First post for the year!

When I've left it so long between posts, it becomes more and more difficult to do so.... Will I start with all my excuses...?  Not, this time.    So, I'll just wish all my bloggy friends a happy, productive and fulfilling 2013.
 Haven't made much progress on work to show you, although I have seen a few exhibitions about which I could have written. I enjoyed Elizabeth Banfield's solo exhibition at red gallery, and actually bought a print.  Very happy to have it!  Her work is very beautiful.
Also enjoyed BAZE at Handheld Gallery which has work by a number of you. The gallery reopens next Wednesday, so you could pop in if you are in Melbourne, and catch the end of this - a fabulous exhibition of zines and artist's books.
I should also mention the highlight of my recent exhibition viewing experiences.  I'm not sure whether I've mentioned before that I work in Visitor Services at Heide Museum of Modern Art.  I am so loving soaking up the fabulous Louise Bourgeois exhibitions - Late Works and Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists - lots of fabric sculptures, fabric drawings, works on paper and the huge spider.  Perhaps because I'm a printmaker and artist who loves working with text, my favourite work is a suite of prints called What is the shape of this problem? -  nine diptychs, letterpress text panels paired with abstract lithographs, intense doodling/patterning (like I do when I'm on the phone).  'The telephone call from the slammer' is the panel that still makes me wobbly just to think about.  The first time I stood in front of the work I got very wobbly indeed!  It's intensely emotive, for me, and quite beautiful. Text fragments from 'The papillion, the ray of hope' and 'To unravel a torment you must begin somewhere' to 'The hour is devoted to revenge'...all very powerful and moving.  The exhibitions are highly recommended!
And just so as this post is not all text here are a couple of proofs of prints for my BAO book, which is very much a work in progress. I am making a book titled A girl waiting.  These are places that a girl might be waiting.... A tram stop in High Street, Northcote,

 the waiting room at Tamworth Station.

And outside Westgarth cinema, Northcote.

The girl and her reasons for waiting are to come.

Work in progress - Cats!

 

 

Some hand-printed proofs of the beginnings of a body of work, A Taxonomy of Cats.

A lover of cats, I've noticed that there are a lot of images of cats in art. Here, the cats are taken out of their context and classified in a faux 'scientific' taxonomy - walking cats, curled, sleeping, sitting up tall or cleaning themselves.  Hunting cats are probably next.  I'm thinking of presenting them as a large educational/scientific poster.  This is one part of an exhibition I'm planning for next year...The Obsessions of  Woman of a Certain Age(!)  The other obsession is Leonard Cohen.  Going for a bit of alliteration...Cohen and Cats!!

 

 

An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street - artist book project

A week or so ago I finally finished and posted off my contribution to the project - An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street - a response to the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street - the street of the booksellers in Baghdad - on 5 March 2007. More information about the project can be seen here.

Bagdad reads * Fragments is a collection of linocut printed and typewritten text fragments taken from the history of Baghdad as a centre of learning, from Iraqi poetry and descriptions of the project, An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street.  The words are printed on very light, somewhat transparent paper, suggesting the fragility of the situation for the booksellers of Al-Mutanabbi Street.  The red of the rather messy pastepaper cover also makes reference to the destruction of the bombings.
The first work on which I've used my recently-purchased typewriter...so excited to have a typewriter!