Works laid out for judging, Fremantle Town Hall, August 2017. Photo: Jessica Wyld
2017 fremantle arts centre print award Supported by Little Creatures Brewing 22 September– 12 November
IT’S GOOD TO BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT
foreword
The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing is only possible through the long term commitment of our major corporate partner and the state government. The partnership with Little Creatures Brewing enables us to present this national award to the very highest standards and with substantial prize money. The long-standing support by the Western Australian State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries has underpinned FAC’s operations and the gallery program in particular. This support, combined with the City of Fremantle’s unwavering commitment to arts and culture, has been the bedrock of FAC’s longevity and success.
Thank you to the judges, Rebecca Beardmore, Franchesca Cubillo and André Lipscombe for the expertise and diligence they brought to their task. The credibility and gravitas of the award is only maintained through having a quality judging panel with a national representation and perspective. Particular thanks to Emma Buswell for her success in her first year as FAC Print Award Coordinator. The annual FAC Print Award exhibition is always a generous, diverse offering enjoyed by everyone, reflecting the irresistible appeal of printmaking in all its manifestations. Jim Cathcart Director Fremantle Arts Centre
sponsor’s word
We are once again honoured to be a key sponsor of the prestigious FAC Print Award and humbled and awed by the talent and creativity of the participants – past and present. We thank Fremantle Arts Centre for the amazing work it does in championing the Arts and showcasing some of Australia’s finest artists. Being a Fremantle based brewery, Little Creatures is proud to play its part in promoting creativity in the Arts space for the community and city. To the artists – your works continue to blow us away year after year. Thank you for sharing for your vision, inspiration and talent. Claire O’Byrne Marketing & Community Coordinator Little Creatures Brewing
From left: Franchesca Cubillo, Rebecca Beardmore and AndrĂŠ Lipscombe. Photo: Jessica Wyld
introduction
Now in its 42nd year, the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing remains Australia’s premier showcase of prints and artists’ books. Continuing the long history of this prestigious national award, Fremantle Arts Centre plays host to the best works from established, emerging and cross-disciplinary artists engaging print matter today. From a diverse submission of 301 entries from across Australia, the 56 artworks selected for this year’s award demonstrate the breadth of the medium and contribute to the ongoing conversation surrounding contemporary printmaking. This year Fremantle Arts Centre invited a panel of industry professionals to select the most engaging, conceptually cohesive and technically executed prints and artists’ books from an extensive pool of entries. This year’s guest judges were: Rebecca Beardmore (NSW) – Artist and Lecturer in Printmedia at the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney; André Lipscombe (WA) – Curator of the Fremantle Art Collection and Franchesca Cubillo (ACT) – Senior Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
Once again, this year’s award provides a stimulating and generous cross section of both traditional and contemporary print making, works of technical mastery complemented by pieces that integrate new technological processes and contemporary image making. At its heart, the award offers a glimpse at the power of print, not only in making visible the personal and narrative histories of the artists involved but as a suggestion towards the implications printed media has on day to day life. emma buswell PRINT AWARD COORDINATOR FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE
judges’ commentary
This year’s Fremantle Art Centre Print Award exhibition offers a diverse mix of highly sophisticated, quality prints that showcase the breadth and complexity of contemporary print practice in Australia. It presents a survey of artists who engage with the medium of print both in terms of process, materiality and physicality of the object but also print as mediated image, impacted through the development of technology and conceptual projects that trace the relevance of print matrix to visual culture. In a number of works, inventive making processes reinforce the relationship between art making and the current moment where re-use, found materials, print and object, narrative structures and relations to world-multiplicity are bonded to the everyday. Print is not just image, but about image engaging with matter and expressed in three dimensions, from the minute to the handheld and to the gargantuan. Both this year’s Award winning prints embody a suspension of a moment in time. They each lay witness to an impending drama, revealing an unfolding story of protagonists that are each encapsulated within a seamless balance of components and delivered economically.
They are equally successful in many respects, each connecting with the history of painting, although employ distinctly different pictorial strategies. Both works make you aware of your own spectatorship. They capture your attention and demand the act of looking, resulting in a continual engagement with the works. This year’s major acquisitive Award winning work by Evan Pank embodies the constructs of the mediated image, fusing spray paint and halftone screen-print of documentary style press images in a panoramic display of social unrest and urban street chaos. His work, Keeping the Bastards Honest 2017, though politically charged is not necessarily politically motivated. He presents that liminal space between the festive and the fight in the apparent hostility unleashed by the spirit and energy of the crowd, making reference to the patriarchal fog and tribal culture of team sport. Pank’s oversized panoramic print connects successfully with the materiality of print and the fluidity of painting, evidenced in the over spray of the warm and cool coloured paint, at once obscuring and highlighting the heightened figurative subject. The modulated hues of paint soften the hard edges of the screen printed halftone, creating pockets of clarity to
From Left: Franchesca Cubillo, Rebecca Beardmore and André Lipscombe. Photo: Jessica Wyld
reveal recurring details in the portraits and hand gestures. There is both a density and lightness to Pank’s work. The images, sampled from various print sources are overlaid and tiled together in a suggestive rather than documentary fashion, heightening the intensity of gesture and reducing its politicized agency to mere spectacle and display. The non-acquisitive Award was presented to Valarie Sparks, for her work Prospero’s Island South West 2016, a work commissioned by the Tasmanian Museum and Gallery for the exhibition Tempest. In her reference to protagonist Prospero’s hypocritical idea of justice and injustice from Shakespeare’s stage play The Tempest, Sparks acknowledges the problematic construct of grand narrative historical painting. The theatrical lighting in the picture suspends the viewer in an eerily quiet moment of drama (the quiet before the storm) analogous with the harsh contours of the landscape, winds, clouds and waterspouts as the gathering arms to face the oncoming invasion. In this nuanced montage of seamless images sourced from multiple sources, Sparks creates a disorienting and emotive hyper clarity, a pure
artifice of theatrical lighting and poetic references, where there is no respite for the viewer transfixed by every detail. The juxtaposition and play between areas of light and dark are both frightening and alluring, forcing the eye to jump and flick across that image. In reference to the capture of historical narratives in painting and global perspectives upon the state of the world is the dark acknowledgement of the on-going trauma of the Aboriginal peoples and natural systems impacted upon following the arrival of the white man. The success and breath of activity contained in this print is bound by the language of image construction and print materiality. Rebecca Beardmore (NSW) Artist and Lecturer in Printmedia at the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney André Lipscombe (WA) Curator of the Fremantle Art Collection Franchesca Cubillo (ACT) Senior Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
award winners
First Prize $16,000 Evan Pank (NSW) Keeping the Bastards Honest, 2016 Work acquired for the City of Fremantle Art Collection
Second Prize $6,000 Valerie Sparks (VIC) Prospero's Island South West, 2016
Highly Commended First Prize Evan Pank (NSW) Keeping the Bastards Honest, 2016 screen print, spray paint 130 Ă— 500 cm
Nathan Beard (WA), Agnosia II, 2017 David Frazer (VIC), slow boat, 2016 Richard Lewer (VIC), Richard's Disasters, 2017 Andrew HC McDonald (WA), Five pieces of Sand, 2017
Evan Pank is an emerging artist living and working in Sydney, Australia. Utilising spray paint and screen printing, he creates works based on his own experiences as a football fan and the interconnection of sport with politics and society. Pank’s unique work explores parallels between political protest on the street and football fandom at games across Australia and the globe. His work depicts the organised chaos and anarchy that is hidden in plain sight.
Valerie Sparks is a Melbourne based artist who creates large scale printed works and immersive installations. She has been the recipient of a number of awards including the Australia Council London Residency, the Cite Des Arts Studio in Paris, Arts Victoria International Program funding. She has undertaken a number of residencies in a variety of research institutions and museums. The strong historical focus in her practice is reflected in her work, as she references and reinterprets historical imagery, archives and artefacts.
SECOND Prize Valerie Sparks (VIC) Prospero's Island South West, 2016 pigment inkjet print on paper 140 × 220 cm printer: JCP
list of works
Seong Cho (NSW) Trail XXVI, 2017 woodblock print 63 × 143.5 cm
Joanne Handley (NSW) Untitled (Orange), 2016 pigment ink on cotton rag paper 84 × 112 cm
Hock Hong Choo (WA) Sunbathing Couch, 2017 silkscreen on acetate (64 layers), paraffin oil, acrylic 11.7 × 16 × 3 cm
Garth Henderson (VIC) constructive_botanics/banksia_ prionotes_02, 2017 glicée print on 290gsm bamboo/rag 90 × 90 cm
Jazmina Cininas (VIC) Blood Sisters, 2016 reduction linocut 69.5 × 56 cm Tony Ameneiro (NSW) Heads Over Heads, 2016 drypoint (white ink) 112 × 280 cm Nathan Beard (WA) Agnosia II, 2017 lenticular print 38 × 48 × 4 cm printer: Degree Vision August Carpenter (VIC) Land Forms, 2017 monoprint 27 × 20 cm David Carson (WA) EQUINOX – 365 DAYS AND NIGHTS, 2017 giclée print – Ultra Chrome pigment ink on 308gsm museum-grade Canson edition etching rag 118 × 200 cm printer: Earlyworks Fremantle Susanna Castleden (WA) 1:500 000 on 1:1 (the charts that led the wings), 2017 frottage and screen print on gesso on rag paper 200 × 300 cm
Julianne Clifford (WA) Matrix/lossy v.1, 2015 graphite transfer, pencil and acrylic on board 50 × 50 × 5 cm Hannah Farleigh (WA) People walking with phones. People walking with pints, 2017 screen print on Canson C.A grain 224gsm paper 150.5 × 115.7 cm David Frazer (VIC) slow boat, 2016 linocut 120 × 180 cm Printer: Bill Young Kath Fries (NSW) Irradiate, 2016 beeswax on paper 300 × 160 × 220 cm Gracia & Louise Haby & Jennison (VIC) I think all the world is falling, 2017 Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, covers mounted on goldtrimmed board, printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board 20 × 12 cm (closed) printers: Arten, Bambra Press
Heather Hesterman (VIC) Warming, 2017 screen print 100 × 170 × 3 cm Christopher Hillstead (WA) 30 degrees 10 minutes South; 115 degrees 46 minutes East, 2016 timber box, printed paper, paint 8 × 23 × 14 cm Jan Hogan (TAS) stain of blackening plumes, 2017 Woodblock print with Chinese ink and lithographic ink on Kozo 4410cm × 4470cm × 100cm Clare Jackson (ACT) This is not a place, 2017 Aquatint etching from two plates on BFK Rives 40.5cm × 38cm Locust Jones (NSW) Warren Ellis 1,2,3,4, 2017 lithograph 152 × 112 cm printer: Lancaster Press Michael Kempson (NSW) Child's Play, 2016/17 etching (50 panels) 260 × 750 cm
Deborah Klein (VIC) Leaves of Absence, 2017 artist book: archival pigment prints, cloth case with debasing 32.5 × 25.5 × 4 cm printer: Luke Ingram Pia Larsen (NSW) Democracy Needs You, 2017 digital and intaglio prints, handmade paper, ink, watercolour paint, glass bottles dimensions variable Richard Lewer (VIC) Richard's Disasters, 2017 acrylic on found printed school map and stone lithography on Japanese Kozo paper 150 × 300 × 4 cm printer: Adrian Kellet Monika Lukowska (WA) Riverside Drive, 2017 lithograph 68 × 70 cm Carly Lynch (WA) Debris, 2016 monotype (graphite on Canson rag paper, graphite transfer paper) dimensions variable Marion Manifold (VIC) Drowning – Southern Ocean Wrack, 2016 linocut & wash 81 × 363 cm William Mansfield (NSW) Inferno, 2016 four colour Risograph on 280gsm Knights – Vellum white paper stock 42 × 29.7 cm
Susan Marawarr (NT) Ka-milemarnbun (Weaving Story), 2017 silkscreen print on homespun cotton 400 × 110 cm printer: Susan Marawarr and Deborah Wurrkidj Rebecca Mayo (VIC) Silent Witness, 2017 screenprint, natural dyes, cotton damask tablecloth 175 × 300 cm Matthew McAlpine (WA) The colonial frame (eroding the James Stirling portrait frame), 2017 imprint (red earth, binder and acrylic paint) 120 × 100 × 9 cm Sarah McConnell (VIC) Exclusion Zones, 2017 etching and aquatint, retroreflective tape 21 × 15 cm Andrew HC McDonald (WA) Five pieces of Sand, 2017 Hand-carved rubber stamps, freehand printing with rubber and ink rollers, archive ink on Arches BFK watercolour paper 120 × 401 cm Carolyn McKenzie-Craig (NSW) equations for squared space, 2016 etching 99 × 102 cm Gordon Monro (VIC) Hexagonal Divisions (Pentaptych), 2017 digital print (5 panels) 88 × 500 cm
Matthew Newkirk (QLD) Teenage Riot, 2017 screenprint 63 × 44 cm Glenda Orr (QLD) Off Setting, 2017 etching 118 × 132 cm Ariane Palassis (WA) Aegis #1, 2017 acrylic paint & mixed media 240 × 120 × 4 cm Evan Pank (NSW) Keeping the Bastards Honest, 2016 screen print, spray paint 130 × 500 cm Jemima Parker (ACT) There and back again, 2017 screen print 64 × 60.5 cm Janet Parker-Smith (NSW) The Vanishing Point, 2016 screen print 76 × 56 cm Kenzee Patterson (NSW) 7 Photocopiers, 2016 offset lithograph prints on 250gsm Canson Bristol paper, screen-printed folder 29.7 × 21 cm printer: Big Fag Press Rusty Peters (WA) Three Nyawana in Yariny Country, 2017 etching and screenprint 49 × 59 cm printers: Basil Hall Editions, Rosita Holmes Jenny Peterson (VIC) Tramway Road, 2017 intaglio print, gouache 121 × 121 cm
Paula Quintela (QLD) Yaganes, 2017 etching, chine-collé and hand paint 75 × 126 × 2 cm Peter Ra (VIC) Victoria Goldrush /Variant 3, 2017 digital archival giclée 45.72 × 45.72 cm printer: Colour Factory Bjoern Rainer-Adamson (WA) Diving into my own universe, 2017 graphite, carbon black on polyurethane fabric, monoprint 152 × 125 cm Suzanne Shelley (NSW) The feminine line, 2016 chine-collé on gampi/latex 100 × 36 cm Gary Shinfield (NSW) Border Lines, 2017 woodcut and photo polymer etching 150 × 228 cm Valerie Sparks (VIC) Prospero's Island South West, 2016 pigment inkjet print on paper 140 × 220 cm printer: JCP Colin Story (WA) within, without, she lives, she breathes, 2016 UV flatbed photographic print 30 × 60 × 60 cm printer: lf Media Paul Uhlmann (WA) SIEV BREMEN letter to the sea, 2016 silk screen and digital print 13 × 21.5 cm
Darren Wardle (VIC) Ruin Lust, 2017 photogravure 63 × 48 cm printer: Vlado and Maria Ondrej, Atelier für Radierung Leipzig Cleo Wilkinson (QLD) Then III, 2017 mezzotint 30 × 30 cm Simon Wilson (WA) Big Cross #1, 2017 stenciled charcoal on paper 152 × 102 cm Carolyn Young (NSW) Wamboin, Active Flowering, 30 October 2015, 2015 photograph, inkjet print on archival paper 103.4 × 137.8 cm
highly commended David Frazer (VIC) slow boat, 2016 linocut 120 Ă— 180 cm Printer: Bill Young
highly commended Richard Lewer (VIC) Richard's Disasters, 2017 acrylic on found printed school map and stone lithography on Japanese Kozo paper 150 Ă— 300 Ă— 4 cm printer: Adrian Kellet
highly commended Andrew HC McDonald (WA) Five pieces of Sand, 2017 Hand-carved rubber stamps, freehand printing with rubber and ink rollers, archive ink on Arches BFK watercolour paper 120 Ă— 401 cm
highly commended Nathan Beard (WA) Agnosia II, 2017 lenticular print 38 Ă— 48 Ă— 4 cm printer: Degree Vision
Christopher Hillstead (WA) 30 degrees 10 minutes South; 115 degrees 46 minutes East, 2016 timber box, printed paper, paint 8 Ă— 23 Ă— 14 cm
William Mansfield (NSW) Inferno, 2016 four colour Risograph on 280gsm Knights – Vellum white paper stock 42 × 29.7 cm
Cleo Wilkinson (QLD) Then III, 2017 mezzotint 30 × 30 cm
Tony Ameneiro (NSW) Heads Over Heads, 2016 drypoint (white ink) 112 × 280 cm
Heather Hesterman (VIC) Warming, 2017 screen print 100 × 170 × 3 cm
Peter Ra (VIC) Victoria Goldrush /Variant 3, 2017 digital archival giclĂŠe 45.72 Ă— 45.72 cm printer: Colour Factory
Janet Parker-Smith (NSW) The Vanishing Point, 2016 screen print 76 × 56 cm
Rusty Peters (WA) Three Nyawana in Yariny Country, 2017 etching and screenprint 49 Ă— 59 cm printers: Basil Hall Editions, Rosita Holmes
Gracia & Louise Haby & Jennison (VIC) I think all the world is falling, 2017 HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag 308gsm, covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board 20 Ă— 12 cm (closed) printers: Arten, Bambra Press
Jazmina Cininas (VIC) Blood Sisters, 2016 reduction linocut 69.5 × 56 cm
Ariane Palassis (WA) Aegis #1, 2017 acrylic paint & mixed media 240 × 120 × 4 cm
Colin Story (WA) within, without, she lives, she breathes, 2016 UV flatbed photographic print 30 Ă— 60 Ă— 60 cm printer: lf Media
Matthew Newkirk (QLD) Teenage Riot, 2017 screenprint 63 × 44 cm
Bjoern Rainer-Adamson (WA) Diving into my own universe, 2017 graphite, carbon black on polyurethane fabric, monoprint 152 Ă— 125 cm
acknowledgements
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: Rebecca Beardmore, André Lipscombe and Franchesca Cubillo; for the consideration and expertise they brought to this year’s award and selection process. Fremantle Arts Centre would like to thank in particular the partnership with Curtin University and the third year Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) Practicum students, 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: Shalu Varma, Hannah Besci, Eleonora Barcellona, Jessica Whiteman, Hannah Borowitzka, Emily Crawford and Olivia Ryan.
FAC STAFF Director Jim Cathcart General Manager Marcus Dickson Curator Dr Ric Spencer Exhibitions & Special Projects Coordinator Erin Coates FAC Print Award Coordinator Emma Buswell
Graphic Designer 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
Gallery Officers Emma Buswell, Tom Freeman
Reception Caroline Brook, Sheridan Coleman, Joanna Brown
City of Fremantle Art Collection Curator André Lipscombe
Grounds & Technician George Gregson
Moores Building Exhibitions Manager Richie Kuhaupt Residencies and Studios Coordinator Bevan Honey Events Coordinator Andrew Clark Learning Coordinator Deborah Haslam Catalogue Design: Isabel Krüger
Communications Assistant Sam Leung
Communications Manager Andrea Woods
Facility & Program Assistant Aaron Lyons Install Staff David Brophy, Dan Bourke, Emma Buswell, Damian Capone, Janet Carter, Sam Eastcott, Tom Freeman, Simone Johnston, Liam Kennedy, Dominic Loss, Hugh Thompson, Claire Wohlnick, Hansdieter Zeh
Works laid out for judging, Fremantle Town Hall, August 2017. Photo: Jessica Wyld