Exhibition Catalogue | 2021 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award

1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle, WA | fac.org.au Fremantle Arts Centre is supported by the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.

Fremantle Arts Centre is situated at Walyalup on Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodjar. We acknowledge the Whadjuk people as the traditional owners and custodians of culture of this land and extend our respect to their Ancestors and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Elders, past and present.

foreword

introduction

It is an extraordinary moment still within an extraordinary time to be here in Walyalup, Fremantle. The isolation of Western Australia has brought a new reality to us all and yet through the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award we have enabled 51 artists from across Australia to convene via a celebration of the visceral, ever evolving, contemporary medium of print.

This year marks the 45th Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. There’s been a long wait to hold this exhibition. In March and April of 2020, we were all set to launch into another year’s Print Award – the call for entries had opened, a few eager applicants had already submitted works and everything was looking good to go. Two weeks into the open call, the global pandemic made its way to Australia, and with it our decision to postpone. A year later and the time has come for the Print Award’s return.

In 2021 this beloved and nationally coveted prize evokes through individual works, confronting honesty, a playful solitude and raw reflection of these times past and yet collectively a sense of resilience, evolution and regeneration.

We are so proud to be able to share with you all such a powerful reminder of the role art plays in grounding us in the collective human experience, drawing us out of our isolation.

Thanks to our exceptional judges, to the everbrilliant Emma Buswell for her curatorial and coordination aplomb and to the rest of the team here at Fremantle Arts Centre who provide the scaffolding to enable all that we do.

Fremantle Arts Centre, City of Fremantle is grateful to the longstanding support of the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.

Our sincere congratulations to all the artists selected for 2021 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award.

ANNA REECE FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE DIRECTOR

So much has changed in this past twelve months. So much time spent at home, in studios, spending charged moments looking inward and responding to the state of the world.

The 51 finalists selected for this year’s award demonstrate the full breadth and dexterity of printmaking and the medium’s power to communicate, question, and emote the entirety of lived human experiences.

Continuing in its engagement with the national conversation surrounding printmaking, Fremantle Arts Centre invited a panel of industry professionals from across Australia to select works from a pool of 262 entries. This year’s guest judges were: Felicity Johnston: Curator and Director of Art Collective WA; Lia McKnight: Australian artist and curator based in Walyalup/Fremantle, Collection Manager of the Curtin University Art Collection and previous exhibiting artist at Fremantle Arts Centre; and Rachel Salmon-Lomas: Printmaking lecturer and technician at Curtin University and previous Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award finalist.

The selected finalists and the winning works demonstrate a cross-section of contemporaneous Australian printmaking and acknowledge the full breadth and scope of the medium.

As in previous years, the printmaking in this award evidences the deference of the maker towards the handmade mark, and makes palpable the relationship between the artist and the world and environment they inhabit. Examining the winning and commended works selected by our judges therein lays a sensitive and informed representation of the human relationship to the natural world, as both witness and custodian to this fragile ecosystem that supports us. It is more important now than ever that printmaking, that image making, performs its lifelong function as both document and contract in the pursuit of relating the human experience to a wider audience. This award continues to provide a cross-section of contemporary print making in Australia and reveals experiences of today’s practising artists.

Looking at the finalists’ work selected for this year’s Print Award it’s hard not to see the impact and imprint this past year has had on the artists involved. Living rooms and home studios have been overrun as artists intuit the situations the world provides and imbue their work with questions, learnings and experiences. The winning works and the highly commended artists the judges have chosen share a certain intimacy in their works. ICU, Alison Kennedy’s epic self-portrait rendered in bitmap detail, and screen printed onto a sleek reflective black

surface allows the viewer to see the artist and see themselves in the same breath, becoming entangled and complicit in the discussion the work unfolds. John Prince Siddon’s work is a brave new foray into technologically assisted printmaking, grounded though by his irresistible painterly style. Beth Ferialdi’s heart-warming I’ve Been Meaning to Give You These, for me nostalgically recalls a teenage me singing along to my radio and patiently recording my favourite songs onto tape cassette. Cleo Wilkinson’s mezzotint is breathtaking in its attention to detail and Dan McCabe’s Shadows on the Hill performs as both shelter, monument and camouflage, and is designed to bring people together in conversation. For Pip Lewi and Paul Sutherland, their work was completed living together, charting the lines of repair cast in bitumen to the asphalt roads surrounding their home. It is a document of a place lived and explored together.

The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award’s return is another step back towards the normal rhythm of pre-pandemic life but as the generous and varied selection of works presented reveal, the events of 2020 have had a deep and likely lasting impact on the creative community that will play out for years to come. The artists in the Print Award have taken onboard the inherent responsibility of social commentator, documenter and storyteller.

EMMA BUSWELL FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE PRINT AWARD COORDINATOR

judges’ commentary It was a great pleasure to judge the 2021 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and we congratulate all the participating artists for the breadth of quality and skill evident in this year’s Award. The prize winners and highly commended works are notably diverse, ranging widely in scale, medium and thematic approach. Beyond this apparent disparity, we feel they share a common link – each in their own way communicates a sense of intimacy, whether through deeply personal depictions of subject, the use of the artist’s hand or through the artist’s direct engagement with their communities. There were so many works that astounded us for their display of skill, materiality, technique and message, however we found ourselves coming back to works that all spoke to us in varying ways about connection.

Given the events of the past twelve months, themes of isolation unsurprisingly emerged in multiple works, notably in Pip Lewi and Paul Sutherland’s Road Repairs, a large-scale rendition of Lewi’s suburban street. Using multiple print processes this layered work reflects the slow pace and reductive world of lockdown. Beth Ferialdi’s painstakingly curated selection of mixed tapes threw us back to the solitude of our 1980’s bedrooms, filling us with laughter, nostalgia and the memory of teen friendship that once meant everything. Many works in this year’s Award utilise humour and it was such a pleasure to laugh abundantly and often throughout the judging process. This use of humour was often employed to address serious issues, no less than in Dan McCabe’s magnificent Shadows on the hill. This arduously fabricated car/tent has been facilitating community-based conversations around housing affordability, sustainable architecture and land use since 2016.

Through the initial selection process, we were aware that this year’s Award would be a challenge to hang with numerous large works and our congratulations go to Print Award Coordinator Emma Buswell and Installation Coordinator Tom Freeman for approaching this demanding task with enthusiasm and vision.

Scale was often a point of discussion for the judges and most remarkably, we found the smallest work in the exhibition to be one of the most impactful. Cleo Wilkinson’s Then IV depicts the rear view of a young boy’s neck and head.

An exquisitely vulnerable and intimate image, Wilkinson says “I love nursing the life of an image out of its pitch-black womb into hope”.

A poetically apt description of the slow and highly skilled process of mezzotint.

Both prize winners in this year’s Award combine the use of traditional techniques with new technologies in a considered and purposeful way that supports the integrity of the work and their artistic intent. They each possess an understated confidence and power that initially drew our attention and continued to maintain our intrigue over the two days of judging. Both winners embrace risk-taking as an important part of their art process. Alison Kennedy’s skilfully composed work ICU is a brave and poignant portrait of the artist in her studio, her face and body partially obscured by glitches that reveal the artist’s use of digital technology. Kennedy combines laboriously hand printed silkscreen with 3D modelling techniques, exploiting the effects of pixelation to create a seductive granular quality. Printed onto industrial acrylic sheeting, the work is one of many in the exhibition that is multi-panelled.

In this case the glossy, reflective surface provides a sensual quality to the work that mirrors the viewer, placing us within this oversized portrait. In contrast to this monochromatic work, John Prince Siddon’s Purlkartu (Spider) is arguably the most vibrant work in the exhibition. Having painted cow skulls for many years now, Siddon has hand painted a 3D printed skull, the surface of which features a lace or skin-like texture, derived from one of his 2D paintings. Dynamic and raw, it reflects the bold landscape and intensity of light characteristic to Siddon’s home Country in the Kimberley. This work is very much in keeping with Siddon’s distinctive and eclectic style, a magnetic combination of imagery and colour that references Country, culture and the bloody histories of colonisation.

In each of these six works, and so many more in the exhibition, there is clearly a deep commitment to process and practice, a sincerity of intent. This became clear over the two days spent walking among them, and with each re-visit there seemed to be another layer, something else the work wanted to say. We were more than willing to listen, and we thank all the artists for the conversation.

FELICITY JOHNSTON CURATOR AND DIRECTOR, ART COLLECTIVE WA RACHEL SALMON-LOMAS PRINTMAKING LECTURER AND TECHNICIAN, CURTIN UNIVERSITY LIA MCKNIGHT WESTERN AUSTRALIAN VISUAL ARTIST AND COLLECTION MANAGER, CURTIN UNIVERSITY

award winners first prize

second prize

Alison Kennedy ICU, 2019 white ink screenprint on 30 industrial polyacrylic panels

John Prince Siddon Purlkartu (Spider), 2020 acrylic paint on 3D print, ABS plastic resin

Alison is a Melbourne Naarm based artist who combines technology, malfunction and handmade media. Her practice is grounded in a desire to reveal what is hidden through closely observing the artistic process as it twists and turns.

Underneath it all she asks, “When does something make sense?” This often leads to artwork that surprises herself as well as others.

John Prince Siddon is a Walmajarri man born in Derby in 1964. Currently based in Fitzroy Crossing, he is the son of Pompey Siddon, one of the founding painters at Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency.

Her work and research have been critically received.

Kennedy was included in the 10 year survey show of Leipzig International Art Residency (Germany) and in the 2021 ANAT DNA research residency program. She has exhibited widely in Australia and Germany. She recently graduated with a MFA (research) from Melbourne University, where she won the Fiona Myer Award in 2019.

Moving between 2D and 3D surfaces he renders confronting imagery inspired by national and global issues he sees on television, his own story, desert iconography and the Narrangkarni (Dreamtime).

Prince has been a regular finalist in the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Art Awards since 2018 and was highly commended in the 2018 King & Wood Mallesons Contemporary First Nations Art Award. In February 2020, Perth Festival commissioned John Prince Siddon’s first major solo show All Mixed Up, presented by Fremantle Arts Centre.

highly commended Beth Ferialdi I’ve Been Meaning To Give You These, 2020 hand cut and digital collage Pip Lewi + Paul Sutherland Road Repairs, 2020 solvent transfer, screenprint, intaglio, acrylic, gesso and bitumen on cotton rag Dan McCabe Shadows on the hill, 2016 – ongoing digital photographic print on synthetic fabric using dyesublimation, aluminium frame, steel, polyester mesh and fixings

Cleo Wilkinson Then IV, 2020 mezzotint Print

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First Prize

first prize Alison Kennedy ICU, 2019 white ink screenprint on 30 industrial polyacrylic panels 240 x 300cm 1/1

second prize John Prince Siddon Purlkartu (Spider), 2020 acrylic paint on 3D print, ABS plastic resin 20 x 50 x 50cm 1/5 printed by Heads 3D

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highly commended Cleo Wilkinson Then IV, 2020 mezzotint print 37 x 27cm 22/40

highly commended Beth Ferialdi I’ve Been Meaning To Give You These, 2020 hand cut and digital collage dimensions variable 1/1 printed by Fitzgerald Photo

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highly commended Pip Lewi + Paul Sutherland Road Repairs, 2020 solvent transfer, screenprint, intaglio, acrylic, gesso and bitumen on cotton rag 90 x 357cm 1/1

highly commended Dan McCabe Shadows on the hill, 2016 – ongoing digital photographic print on synthetic fabric using dye-sublimation, aluminium frame, steel, polyester mesh and fixings 137 x 197 x 457cm 1/1 printed by Emerald Dreams

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Andrew Nicholls Demon and Martyr, 2019 lenticular prints 58 x 41 x 2cm each framed 1/1 printed by Clegg Media

Helen Kocis Edwards Skater girl, bilby and the winged lion, 2019 drypoint etching on giclee print, double sided, circular format 10 x 42 x 42cm 4/10

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Daniel O’Shane Irukili (to be engulfed by magical forces), 2020 vinylcut relief print 114 x 218cm 1/25 printed by Theo Tremblay (Editions Tremblay NFP)

Izabela Pluta Blue spectrum and descent (7 Variation 2, 23 Variation 1, 24 Variation 1, 12 Variation 3, 13 Variation 4), 2020 cyanotype on watercolour paper 102 x 164 x 3cm unique edition

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Jan Hogan The Reveal, 2019 woodblock print with sumi ink and black pigment on Kozo with woodblock matrix 356 x 310 x 360cm 1/1

Rainer Doecke Tetrahex, 2020 abrasion reduction woodcut print on Magnani paper, adhesive and assembly 104 x 64 x 5cm 1/1

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Brian Robinson Miffy + friends: The usual suspects, 2020 linocut 120 x 207cm 4/10 printed by Theo Trembley, photography by Michael Marzik

Christophe Canato ANIMA #1, 2020 digital photography 118cm x 111cm 2/5 printed by Fitzgerald Pro Lab

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Sarah Robinson It RE-mains to be seen, 2020 digital print, traditionally smoked with wax tapers, cold pressed Arches 167 x 149cm unique print photography by Ian Yendell

Jennifer Cochrane Impossible Shadow #34, 2020 flashing tape, painted monoprint 62 x 42 x 1cm unique state

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Locust Jones Plague Parade, 2020 lithograph 173 x 227cm 1/3 printed by Sunshine editions

Tim Meakins Low Energy, 2019 3D printing 195 x 153 x 68cm 1/1 printed by Artcom Fabrication

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Lee Harrop Warning -- Facts, 2019 embossed hard cover handcrafted stitch-bound book, digital print on 190g lustre paper, rock specimen from core sample, clamshell box with embossed cover 21 x 21 x 1cm 1/1 printed by Momento

Damian Dillon dunno(elegies), 2020 pigment inkjet print on hahnemuhle 59 x 42cm 1/5 printed by Amanda Hensby

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Elmari Steyn Death Song, 2020 multiple copper plate etching, chine-collé 56 x 222cm unique state

Lesley Duxbury Future Landscape #1–#4, 2020 photo-etching and inkjet print 40 x 133cm 1/5

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Megan McPherson The breadth of it is astounding, 2020 relief printed etching on rice paper, pigment ink, glues 120 x 120 x 20cm unique state

The Usual Collective: Safam Adir, Georgette Grosse, Benjamin Ori The Stories of My Grandmother (When Colony and Patriarchy Collide), 2020 silkscreen on Egyptian cotton 100 x 100cm 1/2 printed by Throwdown Press

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Alice Nampitjinpa Dixon Tali Tali – Sandhills, 2019 ink on paper 49 x 98cm 20/20 printed by Basil Hall Editions

Maxxi Minaxi May Media Mayhem, 2020 giclee print on 310gsm Canson Rag Photagraphique 106 x 129 x 3cm 1/1 printed by Jospeh Landro, photography by Chris Kershaw

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Melissa Harvey The Silent Pool, 2020 cotton pulp made from re-used clothing and domestic cloth 210 x 60 x 303cm 1/1

Elizabeth Knuckey these walls hold all the secrets, 2020 screen print 85 x 163cm 2/2 photograpghy by Paul Sutherland

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Joel Gailer Something Between Us, 2020 augmented reality and digital print dimensions variable unlimited edition printed by Amethyst Costello

Seong Cho Windy Hill, 2020 woodblock 107 x 238cm 2/2

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Peter Burgess Scenario #8, 2020 inkjet on Hahnemuhle Photorag 110 x 303cm 2/5

Justin Trendall The Aldine Press, 2019 screen print on black cotton drill 60 x 46 x 1cm unique state

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Duncan Wright Untitled (Your Friendly Neighbour), 2020 photograph/found chair 84 x 59 x 4cm 1/1 printed by Joseph Landro

Nathalie Hartog Gaultier around the table, 2007–2021 relief print with gilding tool, digital print, graphite drawing on hand made casted paper dimensions variable 1/1

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Nina Wright In His Image and Likeness, 2020 thermal paper, steel, candles 168 x 34 x 34cm 1/1 photography by Bo Wong

Judith Martinez Estrada Erased Biographies, 2019 solid copper laser cut, sandblasted, polished, patinated and printed digitally with UV inks on a flatbed printer dimensions variable unique state print printed by Definitive

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Liam Garstang Holding Yard (2300), 2020 drypoint monotype 80 x 120cm 1/3

Linda Fardoe Nocturnal Mindscape, 2020 giclee 61 x 324cm 1/2 printed by Fitzgerald Printing

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Hiroshi Kobayashi In the lapse of time (Ord Street), 2020 oil on canvas 45 x 190 x 3cm 1/1

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Bridie Weaver A Game of Hunters and Hunted, 2020 artist book 31 x 43 x 21cm 1/1

Yvonne Rees-Pagh Cat Demon, 2020 woodblock and screenprint 161 x 121cm unique state

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Jazmina Cininas Jerboa Jerboa’s enchantments cost her dear, 2020 reduction linocut 70 x 42cm 4/5

Lucas Ihlein EXTRA!EXTRA!, 2019 risographic prints, offset prints 250 x 250cm risograph edition 50 and omnibus edition 2000 printed by Alisa Croft from The Rizzeria and Pinch Press (risographic), plus commercial offset for the omnibus edition

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Ailsa Waddell Love ur loops; (it’s a long tunnel), 2020 screen prints, coloured paper, tracing paper, carbon paper, texta, pencil, masking tape, painters tape, pink builders line, chain, hooks, rings 1630 x 1400 x 50cm 1/8

Pascale Giorgi A Maronna t’accumpagna.. ma chi guida sei tu (The Virgin Mary is with you, but it’s you doing the driving), 2020 digital print on car sun shade 70 x 145 x 20cm 1/1 printed by Totallycovers.com

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Brighde O’Hara Pre-Fab, 2020 metal etching on fabric, silk, indigo dye, glass beads, stones, wadding 138 x 160 x 3cm 1/2 photography by Bo Wong

Danielle Freakley Your Second Hand, 2020 sublimation printing on fabric and embroidery printing 150 x 150cm unique edition

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Harrison Riekie hidden vista, 2020 digital print, video 94 x 128cm 1/5

Anne Starling Nuclear Family, 2020 linocut, woodblock, intaglio relief 62 x 158cm 3/7

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Valerie Sparks Momento Spiritum, 2019 pigment inkjet print on paper 51 x 124cm 2/8 printed by JCP

Susanna Castleden 1:1 Expeditor Tail, 2019 graphite and gesso on rag paper 265 x 710cm 1/1

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acknowledgements

project staff

Immense thanks to this year’s judging panel: Felicity Johnston, Lia McKnight and Rachel Salmon-Lomas for the respect, enthusiasm and expertise they brought to this year’s award and selection process.

Director Anna Reece

Fremantle Arts Centre would like to thank Curtin University for the ongoing partnership that sees third year Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) Practicum students undertake their Professional Practicum Internship at Fremantle Arts Centre. The following students have significantly contributed to the preparation and delivery of this year’s Award: Zoe Peet, Nina Raper, Toby Tomlinson and Ella-Louise Thomas.

Thank you to the WA Maritime Museum for providing venue space for this year’s judging.

Special thanks once again to Tom Freeman and Jane Chambers for assisting with this year’s Award, and to Erin Coates for her support.

General Manager Marcus Dickson

Acting Curator (Exhibitions & Special Projects Curator) Erin Coates

FAC Print Award Coordinator Emma Buswell

Installations Coordinator Tom Freeman Gallery Officer Dan Bourke

Events Coordinator David Craddock Events Officer Claudia Rayne Communications Manager Andrea Woods

Communications and Content Officer Rosamund Brennan

Graphic Designers Sofia Antonas Susie Blatchford

Finance Officer Christine Lofthouse

Reception Caroline Brook Sheridan Coleman Joanna Brown Amy Perejuan Capone

Install Staff Dan Bourke Damian Capone Phoebe Clarke Rob Kettels Minaxi May Hugh Thomson Phoebe Tran Claire Wohlnick Hansdieter Zeh Claire Bailey Angela Ferrolla Emilie Monty

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