LAUREN JAYE CARTER YONDER
Closer / Further 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata Warm 42 x 29.7cm
Publisher
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Townsville City Council
PO Box 1268
Townsville City, Queensland, 4810 galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au
©Galleries, Townsville City Council, and respective artists and authors, 2020
ISBN
Published on the occasion of Lauren Jaye Carter / Yonder
February 12 – 11 April, 2021, Perc Tucker
Regional Gallery Artists
Lauren Jaye Carter
Publication and Design Development
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
Contributing Authors
Jonathan McBurnie
Artwork documentation
Michael Marzik
Acknowledgement of Country
Townsville City Council acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Townsville – the Wulgurukaba of
Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun; and Bindal people. We pay our respects to their cultures, their ancestors and their Elders – past and present – and all future generations.
Full staff listings: Galleries Team
Dr Judith Jensen Team Manager, Arts
Dr Jonathan McBurnie
Creative Director
Erwin Cruz Senior Exhibitions Officer
Rachel Cunningham
Senior Education and Programs Officer
Acknowledgements
Jonathan McBurnie and the Perc Tucker Regional gallery
Michael Marzik
The traditional owners and custodians; the Bindal and Wulgurukaba people of the Townsville region
LAUREN JAYE CARTER YONDER
Lauren Jaye Carter belongs to a growing number of Australian artists who embrace printmaking techniques, but not for the sole purpose of reproduction. Using printmaking as a means of accumulating visual resources for later use Carter bypasses the typical printmaker’s instinct which tends toward a clone-like homogeneity branching from that holy Artist Proof. Carter instead spins out variations, growing and changing like amoebas, clouds, or plant cuttings, combining organic forms with hard-edges and geometries that echo the industrialised world.
Jo Lankester
Collections Management Officer
Tanya Tanner Public Art Officer
Leonardo Valero Exhibitions Officer
Jake Pullyn Exhibitions Officer, Projects
Jonathan Brown
Education and Programs Assistant
Wendy Bainbridge Gallery Assistant
Chloe Lindo Gallery Assistant
Michael Favot Gallery Assistant
Veerle Janssens Gallery Assistant
Ashleigh Peters Gallery Assistant
Special thanks: Murky Waters Studios and Salty the studio dog. Margaret Genever and Laurel McKenzie from Ink Masters Cairns who work tirelessly to provide artistic opportunities (and equipment!) for printmakers like myself. Pavel Slootsky at Melbourne Etching Supplies for all of his ongoing technical advice and artistic appreciation. The Carter Family in Berry (Kerry, Van, Judy, Mare, Hayden, Atsakhone, Thi & Zara) who are all uniquely creative people themselves, and in particular my Grandma Mare, who leads quietly by example, and has always encouraged me to live a thoughtful and creative life. Hannah Murray for your unwavering support, patience and belief in my practice. You are most certainly- the oil in this machine. Thank You.
Notably, many artists adapting printmaking to best suit their own artistic pursuits, rather than plugging into the tradition are female, consciously discarding the systems associated with the ‘Master’ printmaker and with them the outdated mechanics of patriarchal gatekeeping. Forms can sit in the studio, awaiting reintegration or further development for some time before they find their final destination, transplanted into new planes, strata and terrain. This approach to printmaking frees the artist from the rigorous repetition involved in producing identical prints for editioning (and so the fussy conventions associated with the media), and pivots toward more of an iterative philosophy which evolves in the studio. Other media such as watercolour pencil are used surreptitiously to add depth and details, patiently tracing line and form to delicate effect. The pursuit of perfect mechanical reproduction is replaced with a nuanced and specific approach to printmaking technique more connected to the whims of the artist than demands of the media and its associated particulars.
Carter’s work is intriguing for her refusal to adhere to the conventions of any the media that she collides. Drawing and painting are only used sporadically. Printmaking is certainly a large part of the work, and yet there is a general refusal to reproduce; images repeat, but in varying configurations, never quite the same. Though collage may at the end of the day be the most appropriate designation for Carter’s work, even this doesn’t quite do the entire artistic project justice. Again, the artist avoids the typical concerns of the media, the most obvious (and abused) being the mish mash of different animal and human body parts, a kind of ‘go-to’ project for teachers of grade one which is
inevitably revisited if the student ends up in art school. Fortunately, Carter’s approach to collage is far more nuanced, incorporating the artist’s considered and subtle approach to colour, which shifts the mood of the works from the sun-bleached climes of so many Australian artists, toward somewhere more liminal, a twilight world.
Works are developed from multiple start points, many of which are taken from maps of specific areas, and photographs of landscape and natural forms. An important artistic development leading into the work exhibited in Yonder, however, came through a key region of reference was that of the New South Wales South Coast, which was ravaged by fires in early 2020. The artist has family in the area, so the continued focus on maps, charts and satellite captures of the devastated areas began to influence the way these works were resolved; a definite shift had occurred. Following the active fires became an urgent and necessary means of keeping tabs on loved ones, thrusting an artistic interest into a much more personal context. While Carter’s work is not strictly autobiographical, or even narrative for that matter, this personal aspect becomes indivisible from the work itself. In this way, the title Yonder addresses the negative space one tries to fill in place of the dislocated positive. As the artist puts it, ‘places you can’t reach, so you wonder about them’. One would assume that this close monitoring and thinking about the lives of loved ones has only intensified throughout the course of 2020.
Another fascinating aspect to Carter’s work is it’s complete absence of the human figure, or any evidence of humans whatsoever, no buildings, roads, cars, anything, adding an uncanny register of alienation of some works, almost as if it were a cartographic survey of a world that may have been home to us, or a species like us, a long time ago. The large-scale installation, itself made up of hundreds of tiny pieces of Carter’s collaged terra-forma pinned together to form a supercontinent resembles scientific drawings (which are themselves highly-interpretive, theoretical, and therefore quite fascinating) of Pangea or Gondwanaland, before the continents we now know split apart, moved by massive tectonic shifts in the Earth’s crust over millions of years. As the artist note, ‘the distance between here and over there is all a matter of perception’.
Jonathan McBurnie Solid ground 2020 Relief print collage; Stonehenge black, tengucho tissue, mingeishi black, BFK grey paper 29.7 x 21cmSeek and you may find 2020
Relief print collage; Stonehenge black, mingeishi black, BFK grey
29.7 x 21cm
Close future 2020
Relief print collage; Stonehenge black, mingeishi black, BFK grey
42 x 29.7cm
Slice of heaven (or close to it) 2020
Relief print collage; Stonehenge black, Stonehenge Tan, Kozo natural
Short cut 2020
Relief print collage; buff, Kozo natural, BFK grey
42 x 29.7cm
All the way 2020
Relief print collage; Fabriano buff, Kozo natural, BFK grey
42 x 29.7cm
Seek and you shall find 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Mingeishi black, Stonehenge Fawn 40 x 22.5cm
Moving forward 2020
The wondering 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Stonehenge Fawn
Within reach 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Stonehenge Fawn, Kitakata warm, Tengucho tissue
29.7 x 21cm
Plains of passage 2020
Relief print collage; Kitakata warm, Kozo natural, BFK Grey
59.4 x 42cm
Beyond yonder 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, Kitakata Cool, Rosaspina Buff
59.4 x 42cm
Closer / Further 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata Warm
42 x 29.7cm
Here / Now / In between 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata Warm, Rosapsina Buff
29.7 x 21cm
Shaping Yonder 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata Warm, Rosapsina Buff, Mingeishi black 42 x 29.7cm
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, kitakata warm, Kitakata cool, Stonehenge tan 42 x 29.7cm
Only Just 2020
Relief print collage; Kitakata warm, BFK Grey
42 x 29.7cm
Inner twilight 2020
Cities of gold 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata warm, Rosaspina Buff
42 x 29.7cm
