JUROR’S STATEMENT

JUROR’S STATEMENT DR. JANE KINSMAN

Distinguished Adjunct Curator and former Head of International Art and Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books, National Gallery of Australia.

To ‘think outside the square’ is an expression which refers to breaking out of limited and restricted spaces using qualities of imagination and talent. In FOOTPRINT 2020 artists are provided with the opportunity to be creative in a limited scale yet challenged to escape geometric confinement.

In the history of western art, the power of the small image has been immense. Take, for example the lithographs of Honoré Daumier which appeared in the small scale pages of French satirical journals such as La Caricature and Le Charivari, where he examined political and later social themes of 19th century France. Daumier recognised that the newly installed King Louis-Philippe, with his paunch and heavy jowls, looked remarkably like the shape of a pear—which became the perfect motif for the artist’s caricatures to ridicule the monarch. Following Daumier’s imprisonment and the introduction of new censorship laws in 1836, the artist then turned to social satire in order to lampoon the habits and foibles of those in French society who supported the king. Such social caricature served as a rich visual repertoire for many artists associated with Impressionism in their search for contemporary themes of modern life and rejection of historical, classical, or religious subjects so favoured in French Academic Art.

The FOOTPRINT 2020 prize highlights the imaginative and technical facility by many contributing artists and their evocation of disparate yet potent themes within the confines of a small image—demonstrating that large scale does not always equate with importance. The artists and the organisers should be congratulated in bringing together a wide ranging body of work, exploring many and varied creative worlds. These may conjure up different universes, some infinite, or may evoke surreal experience. Others delight the eye with their rich decorative qualities, while others are redolent with emotional power, and yet others relish in the minutiae of the world around us for maximum effect.

While acknowledging the creative qualities of all the entries, I would like to mention briefly the contributions made by the prize winners of FOOTPRINT 2020. As first prize winner, Christine Aaron has exploited the flexibility and gestural qualities of the monotype technique. In the past, this printing process has allowed artists great freedom to compose. Edgar Degas, for example, embraced monotypes to develop quite radical images, which later came to inform his painting style. For Path, Aaron has harnessed the spontaneity of the technique to create a most painterly of compositions. Path is characterised by dramatic gestural sweeps which evoke both haunting natural and abstract forms.

In Muscle Memory 2, Anna Trojanowska plays on a sense of ambiguity with her abstract, yet strangely figurative formations which are laid out like some kind of procession. Her skill in lithography using Carrara stone as a matrix, emphasises the mysterious transitory nature of her imagery, highlighted by blurry shadows of darkness and light.

Kyle Chaput’s Rio Bravo III-III emphasises the sometime surreal nature of our experiences, conjuring up the weird imagery of an abandoned boat in a barren location. His adoption of the composite techniques— lithography, laser-engraving, and screen-printing— highlights the stark and puzzling nature of his subject.

The delicate spiraling geometric forms in Had We World Enough (Four Corners) by Joanna Anos seem to allude to an almost endless universe or universes, with its repetitive, decorative patterning and tracery. Their forms are enriched by Anos’ technique of engraving relief and further enhanced by the choice of a delicate chine collé paper support.

In all these excursions, each artist has excited the imagination of the viewer—whether inspiring, delighting, or disturbing them.