fremantle arts centre
print award 2016 supported by little creatures brewing Australia’s premier printmaking award and exhibition
WORKS LAID OUT FOR JUDGING, FREMANTLE TOWN HALL, AUGUST 2016. PHOTO: JESSICA WYLD
fremantle arts centre
print award 2016 supported by little creatures brewing 23 september–12 november
Fremantle Arts Centre is supported by the State Government through the Department Of Culture and the Arts
IT’S GOOD TO BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT
foreword
The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing, now in its 41st year, endures as the country’s leading print award. Unlike say a painting award where there can be a general agreement of what constitutes painting, the FAC Print Award continues to challenge, thrill, confound and stimulate as the idea of print expands and evolves, while never abandoning its roots in traditional techniques. A changing annual panel of judges drawn from across Australia ensures there is no FAC house-view of the print medium.
I have no doubt that this year’s winner will stimulate the debate on the definition of print. I would like to thank Little Creatures Brewing for their long-standing support of the Print Award. Their support enables us to offer generous prize money and present the Award and Exhibition to very high standards. FAC, as part of the City of Fremantle, also acknowledges the ongoing, generous support of the WA State Government through the Department of Culture and the Arts. Jim Cathcart Director Fremantle Arts Centre
sponsor’s word
Since the very early days, being part of the creative and free-thinking arts industry has been a part of who Little Creatures are. We like nothing more than supporting creative types and helping them to take their work to more and more people. Little Creatures is proud to continue our longstanding partnership with the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and to support the Australian arts community. Rebecca Evens brand Manager Little Creatures Brewing
FROM LEFT: JUDGES CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA, HANNAH MATHEWS AND DARREN JORGENSEN, FREMANTLE TOWN HALL, AUGUST 2016. PHOTO: JESSICA WYLD
introduction
The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing is Australia’s premier showcase of prints and artists’ books. Each year Fremantle Arts Centre invites a unique panel of industry professionals to select the most ambitious, conceptually rigorous, and finely executed prints and artists’ books from the extensive pool of entries. This year’s guest judges were: Consuelo Cavaniglia (NSW) – Artist; Independent Curator; Dr Darren Jorgensen (WA) – Discipline Chair, Art History & Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, The University of Western Australia; and Hannah Mathews (VIC) – Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art.
After two meticulous judging rounds held in June and August, the 49 works on display were selected from a total of 301 entries from around Australia. As is tradition, each year the Award winning work enters into the City of Fremantle Art Collection. Over its 41 years the acquisition process from the Award has made a significant contribution to Western Australia’s largest municipal art collection. Now holding 1,430 pieces, the collection contains works by some of Australia’s most significant printmakers and tracks the evolution of printmaking around the country. SIMONE JOHNSTON PRINT AWARD COORDINATOR FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE
judges’ commentary In its 41st year the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing continues to highlight the vitality of printmaking today. It is clear that artists working in the field are challenging and exploring its material, technical, conceptual, and reproductive possibilities. The 301 entries for the Award provided us with much food for thought. They covered a spectrum of concerns within printmaking and revealed much about how the discipline bridges both traditional craft practices and contemporary revision. The 49 artists selected demonstrate a range of lively, rigorous, technically-disciplined and materially-engaged approaches. They represent a cross section of techniques, generations, geographies, training and areas of interest. They illustrate both the complexity of print and its elemental nature of matrix, substrate and impression. The winning work, Sam Bloor’s In Unison (2015), is a relief print removed by the artist from a graffiti wall, locally famous among graffiti artists. Bloor (WA) has carefully removed this stretch of wall using purpose-made chisels to create various layers and textures. What is displayed in the gallery is the surface between the wall’s substrate and the layers of silver and coloured aerosol paint that have been applied to it over fifteen years by various graffiti artists (generally remaining anonymous to each other). Bloor’s
purposeful excavation of this site’s social history through layers of paint reveals a previously invisible record of impressions accumulated through unconscious collaboration. The work is held together by a hardy layer of council paint (emulsion) that sits invisible behind the layers of aerosol. Bloor’s work might be likened to a ‘found’ print. It pushes our understanding of what printmaking is and what printmaking consists of in the twenty-first century. Through In Unison we can also begin to rethink the history of printmaking in Australia. The first prints may well have been animal tracks, impressions of mega fauna left before the arrival of the First Australians who printed their handprints on rock walls. Judy Holding’s (VIC) Diary 1 (2015) references this long history with a collage of such rock art images from across the top of Australia. While the concept of printmaking came about through the invention of the printing press in Europe, leaving one’s mark has long been a means by which life records its passage through the material world. The second prize for the 2016 Award is a collaborative work by artists Virginia Fraser and Elvis Richardson (VIC). FEMMO™ Issue 4, 5 & 6 (2015) is a magazine without pages, an advertisement without a product. The format of this work – bold words, eye grabbing colour, the template of the magazine cover – speaks not only to the history of print publishing but to the structures of power that include and exclude. The work’s language is distinctly feminist and speaks to an audience of female artists, singling out those who are a statistical majority and yet remain a visible minority in the industry. FEMMO is an exciting work because it speaks in a strong voice to the differences that constitute society itself. The diversity of what constitutes a print has always been embraced by the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. The winning works always speak to a contemporary condition and the exhibited works invariably invite discussion on the role and enduring relevance of this established art form. Shannon McCulloch’s (WA)
FROM LEFT: JUDGES DARREN JORGENSEN, HANNAH MATHEWS AND CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA, FREMANTLE TOWN HALL, AUGUST 2016. PHOTO: JESSICA WYLD
highly commended work Hats (2016) juxtaposes images of the police with illustrations of hats and beards. This modest yet succinct and intelligent work poses questions of power, of who wears what hat and when. Also highly commended, Brian Robinson’s (QLD) Land Sea Sky: Charting our place in the Universe (2016) unites space invader icons with Gods and the underwater animals of the Torres Strait. Beautifully composed out of a white page, lines and black ink, different cosmologies come together in a space that can only exist in the imagination. Printmaking is alive but not as we once knew it. By its nature it is a democratic art, one in which everyone has a voice and the opportunity to expand and push our understanding of its boundaries. In the contemporary era the concept of printmaking has been expanded, including almost everything that impresses itself, that leaves a trace, that works with surfaces rather than depths. Through this expanded notion of printmaking, like the expanded cinema of the 1960s, artists remind us what it is that was at stake with the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. The most significant thing about this moment in history was not the ability to make newspapers, books, vinyl
records and posters, but the conceptualisation through technology of human beings as homo reproductus: of minds that reproduce ideas, impressions and images through space and time. In the 2016 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award the cosmic meets the political and insider communities meet the outside. In considering contemporary printmaking we might synthesize the experience of contemporary life with the history of imprinting through mark-making. The many modes of printing visible in this year’s Award show us just how much art making remains a part of the human condition. Consuelo Cavaniglia (NSW) Artist, Independent Curator Dr Darren Jorgensen (WA) Discipline Chair, Art History & Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, The University of Western Australia Hannah Mathews (VIC) Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA
First Prize $16,000 Sam Bloor (WA), In Unison, 2015 Work acquired for the City of Fremantle Art Collection
award winners
Second Prize $6,000 Virginia Fraser and Elvis Richardson (VIC), FEMMO™ Issue 4, 5 & 6, 2015
Highly Commended Shannon McCulloch (WA), Hats, 2016 Brian Robinson (QLD), Land Sea Sky: Charting our place in the Universe, 2016
Sam Bloor (b. 1987) is an emerging artist from Perth, Western Australia. Bloor’s practice investigates points of contention within the designation of urban space. In Unison is a continued exploration into the politics and ideologies that inform the use of these spaces. Bloor has exhibited in a number of group and duo shows including Totem In Tribute (2016) in Edinburgh, UK. He is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University.
First Prize Sam Bloor (WA) In Unison, 2015 aerosol and emulsion, relief print 110 × 534 cm Photo: Robert Frith
FEMMO™ is a triannual series of two-colour, screen-printed, tablecloth-sized magazine covers on fabric. Each issue carries headlines for stories that editors, Virginia Fraser and Elvis Richardson, would like to read and advertises non-existent products they would like to acquire. FEMMO™ imagines a world where feminism informs every topic. FEMMO™ has fun with the art world’s gender-biased status quo. Elvis Richardson is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Melbourne. Virginia Fraser is an artist, writer, editor and curator and lives in Melbourne. Recent exhibitions for FEMMO™ include solo exhibiton FEMMO™ (2015) Boxcopy, Brisbane and Vote for me! FELTspace, Adelaide.
SECOND Prize Virginia Fraser and Elvis Richardson (VIC) FEMMO™ Issue 4, 5 & 6, 2015 screen print on cotton 140 × 330 cm Printer: Stewart Russell, Spacecraft Photo: © FEMMOTM
list of works
Elaine Batton (VIC) Southside, 2015 archival pigment photographic print 51 × 76 cm Nathan Beard (WA) Departures, 2016 overglaze ceramic decal, porcelain, PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition) coating 25 × 36 cm Rebecca Beardmore (NSW) Left to Right Face, 2016 digital pigment print and gloss enamel screen print on uncoated cotton rag paper 80 × 108 cm
Dani Andree (VIC) Take all meals alone for the next five days, 2015 screen printed silk, pine and newsprint 30 × 39.5 × 28.5 cm Lyn Ashby (VIC) A Morning in May, 2015 section-sewn, hardcover artist’s book, archival digital prints on Arches watercolour paper 28 × 21 cm Hayley Bahr (WA) Flight, 2016 solvent transfer on paper 57 × 38 cm Tina Barahanos (NSW) Passenger train, 2016 digital print on BFK 300gsm 118 × 86 cm Printer: Darkstar Digital
Sam Bloor (WA) In Unison, 2015 aerosol and emulsion, relief print 110 × 534 cm Dean Brown (NSW) The Punter, 2015 copper plate etching and aquatint 20 × 13 cm Leah Bullen (NSW) Understory #2, 2016 watercolour monotype 57 × 152 cm Tim Burns (WA) Billboard for the World Trade Centre, 2016 giclee on Arches Rough 60 × 180 cm Printer: Fitzgerald Photo Imaging
Bina Butcher-Monsees (WA) 10/990, 2016 four colour screen print, photographic screen print, gesso and concrete 15.3 × 47.6 × 4 cm Christophe Canato (WA) Portrait of a Leader, 2016 latex pigment print on wall paper 160 × 100 Printer: Fitzgerald Photo Imaging Jillian Ciemitis (WA) Treasury, 2016 photographic screen print 45 × 60 cm Neilton Clarke (NSW) Tailgate Picnic, 2015 woodblock print 38 × 57 cm Macky Cunningham (WA) muso's wanted, 2015 silkscreen 75 × 54 cm Clive Dickson (VIC) Sushi, 2016 etching and aquatint 25 × 12 cm Eva Fernandez (WA) Isabel I la Católica, 2016 archival inkjet on Hahnemuhle fine art paper 100 × 170 cm
Robert Fielding (NT) Mutaka Katylpa, 2016 screen print with hand-painted acrylic on Belgian linen 90 × 140 cm Printer: Trent Walter, Negative Press Virginia Fraser and Elvis Richardson (VIC) FEMMO™ Issue 4, 5 & 6, 2015 screen print on cotton 140 × 330 cm Printer: Stewart Russell, Spacecraft Kailum Graves (QLD) The Otherness of Self (Mirrors for sale on Gumtree), 2016 450 digital c-type prints 152.4 × 304.8 cm Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison (VIC) Because I Like You, 2016 artist’s book, woodblock engraving, unique state collage, pencil, paint on Fabriano Artistico 640gsm traditional white hot-press paper, black linen Solander box with inlaid print and collage 21.5 × 26 × 3.5 cm Judy Holding (VIC) Diary 1, 2015 artist’s book, linocut, screen print 20 × 20 × 300 cm Bookbinder: George Matoulas Screen Printer: Douglas Kirwan Emily Hornum (WA) The Living Room (from series The Life of Holger), 2015 photomedia, digital print 40 × 120 cm
Lucas Ihlein (NSW) The Feral Amongst Us, 2015 scratch foam relief print 60 × 45 cm
Bill Moseley (NSW) Cool Burn – Laura, 2016 copperplate photogravure 56 × 60 cm
Locust Jones (NSW) Yazidi refugees in northern Iraq fleeing ISIL advance, 2014 lithograph 76.2 × 123 cm Printer: Peter Lancaster
Grace Myers (SA) Where We Once Played, 2016 copper plate etching with aquatint 52 × 60 cm Printer: 石刚 (Shi Gang)
Bruno Leti (VIC) Intonaco (monotype) II, 2016 multiplate monotype (unique) 84 × 71 cm
David Nixon (QLD) Revolution, 2015 linocut 180 × 180 cm
Neil Malone (VIC) Prayer book, series 3/1–8 / dogma progression, 2016 drypoint 65.5 × 96 cm
Holly O'Meehan (WA) Reordering the Structured, 2016 digital print 90 × 210 cm Printer: Fitzgerald Photo Imaging
Shannon McCulloch (WA) Hats, 2016 etching 26.3 × 231.5 cm Megan McPherson (VIC) Weight of worry, 2016 relief printed etching on rice paper, pigment ink, archival glues 160 × 50 × 20 cm Printer: Yuho Imara Matthew McVeigh (WA) Urban Sprawl, 2016 Bondcrete, Hebel, concrete, paint, etching 60 × 800 × 5 cm Collaborating Architect: Herarn Perera Printer: Clayton Wilson
Rebecca Orchard (WA) Tracing Back To What You Know, 2015 garden rocks, unfired clay, house paint (Clay Pipe) 20 × 2500 × 30 cm Jason Phu (NSW) One king, a god, intense pressure, mother earth, a small fart, 2016 2 plate etching with WD40 lift, spitbiting 100 × 80 cm Printer: C.A.P. Studio (Chiangmai Art on Paper) Ben Rak (NSW) No Way (Safety At Sea; Manly/Manus), 2015 acrylic and silkscreen on cotton fabric 120 × 200 cm
Kiara Rechichi (WA) All that I am, 2014 linocut on paper 122 × 170 cm
Cleo Wilkinson (QLD) Pledge, 2015 mezzotint print 40 × 30 cm
Sarah Ritchie (VIC) Untitled (interference), 2016 concertina artist’s book, zinc etchings on cotton rag paper 23.7 × 13.7 × 2 cm
Christine Willcocks (NSW) Out of the Blue and into the Black, 2016 monoprint 100 × 100 cm
Brian Robinson (QLD) Land Sea Sky: Charting our place in the Universe, 2016 linocut printed in black ink from one block 116 × 205 cm Printer: Theo Tremblay Teho Ropeyarn (QLD) Anava Ava Anbachama (Our place from beforetime), 2015 vinyl cut print on paper 200 × 124 cm Printer: Theo Tremblay Michael Rose (WA) Utopia Australis – Redbook 1 – Inner cover page, 2016 print 48 × 33 cm Neridah Stockley (NT) Lindsay Avenue Alice Springs, 2016 drypoint etching 35 × 39 cm Peter Ward (NSW) Studio Selfie Quilt, 2016 linocuts on quilted calico 160 × 160 × 30 cm
Joel Wolter (VIC) The doorway, 2015 drypoint 20 × 18 cm Hansdieter Zeh (WA) with you, 2016 digital print, canson edition etching rag, 310gsm 37 × 52.5 cm Printer: Joe Landro
highly commended Shannon McCulloch (WA) Hats, 2016 etching 26.3 Ă— 231.5 cm
highly commended Brian Robinson (QLD) Land Sea Sky: Charting our place in the Universe, 2016 linocut printed in black ink from one block 116 Ă— 205 cm Printer: Theo Tremblay Photo: Michael Marzik
Emily Hornum (WA) The Living Room (from series The Life of Holger), 2015 photomedia, digital print 40 Ă— 120 cm
Tina Barahanos (NSW) Passenger train, 2016 digital print on BFK 300gsm 118 Ă— 86 cm Printer: Darkstar Digital
Teho Ropeyarn (QLD) Anava Ava Anbachama (Our place from beforetime), 2015 vinyl cut print on paper 200 Ă— 124 cm Printer: Theo Tremblay
Judy Holding (VIC) Diary 1, 2015 artist’s book, linocut, screen print 20 × 20 × 300 cm Bookbinder: George Matoulas Screen Printer: Douglas Kirwan Image courtesy of the Artist & Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Leah Bullen (NSW) Understory #2, 2016 watercolour monotype 57 Ă— 152 cm
Lucas Ihlein (NSW) The Feral Amongst Us, 2015 scratch foam relief print 60 × 45 cm photo: John Causley
Bruno Leti (VIC) Intonaco (monotype) II, 2016 multiplate monotype (unique) 84 Ă— 71 cm
Neilton Clarke (NSW) Tailgate Picnic, 2015 woodblock print 38 Ă— 57 cm photo: Spitting Image
Christophe Canato (WA) Portrait of a Leader, 2016 latex pigment print on wall paper 160 Ă— 100 Printer: Fitzgerald Photo Imaging
Elaine Batton (VIC) Southside, 2015 archival pigment photographic print 51 Ă— 76 cm
Robert Fielding (NT) Mutaka Katylpa, 2016 screen print with hand-painted acrylic on Belgian linen 90 Ă— 140 cm Printer: Trent Walter, Negative Press
Lyn Ashby (VIC) A Morning in May, 2015 section-sewn, hardcover artist’s book, archival digital prints on Arches watercolour paper 28 × 21 cm
Ben Rak (NSW) No Way (Safety At Sea; Manly/Manus), 2015 acrylic and silkscreen on cotton fabric 120 × 200 cm
Peter Ward (NSW) Studio Selfie Quilt, 2016 linocuts on quilted calico 160 × 160 × 30 cm
Locust Jones (NSW) Yazidi refugees in northern Iraq fleeing ISIL advance, 2014 lithograph 76.2 Ă— 123 cm Printer: Peter Lancaster
Eva Fernandez (WA) Isabel I la Catรณlica, 2016 archival inkjet on Hahnemuhle fine art paper 100 ร 170 cm
acknowledgements The 2016 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing was led by FAC Print Award Coordinator Simone Johnston, with support from Tom Freeman, Ric Spencer, Jim Cathcart and the wonderful team at Fremantle Arts Centre. A special thank you to our long-term partner Little Creatures Brewing for their enduring support of this significant national award. Sincere thanks to this year’s Judging panel: Consuelo Cavaniglia, Darren Jorgensen and Hannah Mathews; for the consideration and expertise they brought to this year’s award and selection process. It has been a pleasure working with each of you. Thanks to the City of Fremantle for again opening the beautiful Fremantle Town Hall for the final judging round. Thanks also to Ash Pederick for the 2016 Print Award brand design and Isabel Krüger for the catalogue design. Fremantle Arts Centre would like to make particular mention of the third year Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) students from Curtin University of Technology, who have undertaken their Professional Practicum Internship at Fremantle Arts Centre. Thank you to the following students who have significantly contributed to the preparation and delivery of this year’s Award: Christine Carino Alcorin, Jordan Bushby, Chantelle Crupi, Tayla Greene, Dominic Loss, Tania Ponton, Emily Wildeboer, Vanessa Faye Wong and Carrissa Wu.
FAC STAFF Director Jim Cathcart General Manager Marcus Dickson Curator Dr Ric Spencer Exhibitions & Special Projects Coordinator Erin Coates FAC Print Award Coordinator Simone Johnston Gallery Officers Simone Johnston, Tom Freeman, Julia Remmert City of Fremantle Art Collection Curator André Lipscombe Moores Building Exhibitions Manager Richie Kuhaupt Residencies and Studios Coordinator Bevan Honey Events Coordinator Andrew Clark Learning Coordinator Deborah Haslam Communications Manager Andrea Woods Communications Assistant Sam Leung Graphic Designers Ash Pederick, Sofia Antonas Finance Office Christine Lofthouse, Julia Remmert FOUND Manager Pia Chomley Retail Assistants Rose Megirian, Joanna Brown, Jenny Dawson, Kate Jones, Betty Poulsen, Holly O’Meehan Reception Caroline Brook, Sheridan Coleman, Gwen Edwards, Silvia Ferolla Grounds & Technician George Gregson Facility & Program Assistant Aaron Lyons Install Staff Neil Aldum, Damian Capone, Janet Carter, Tom Freeman, Simone Johnston, Liam Kennedy, Shannon Lyons, Dan McCabe, Julia Remmert, Andrew Varano, Jack Wansbrough
FROM LEFT: JUDGES CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA, HANNAH MATHEWS AND DARREN JORGENSEN, FREMANTLE TOWN HALL, AUGUST 2016. PHOTO: JESSICA WYLD
Fremantle Arts Centre 1 Finnerty Street Fremantle Western Australia
+ 61 8 9432 9555 10am–5pm 7 days fac.org.au
Fremantle Arts Centre is supported by the State Government through the Department Of Culture and the Arts