21 February 2016

International Printmaker: Linda Jules, Canada

On Friday I had the privilege of meeting Linda Jules,
a sculptural printmaker from Kamloops, BC, Canada.
Linda is visiting New Zealand for 2 weeks,
and was interested to see what was happening here in our print community.

Prue Mac Dougall and Linda Jules, Feb 2016
(trying on some of Prue's coronets in progress)

It was great to hear about her experiments with sculptural printmaking,
so I thought I'd share a few insights about her work, taken from her website,
as it may inspire some of you working in multiple dimensions: 

"I am inspired and fascinated by the natural world and the human culture that inhabits it. 
The environment without and the individual within, (the container and the contained), 
I seek to illuminate the natural world, the human condition that exists within our world,
 and how the two are connected." 

Linda Jules (Canada), Heaven and Earth - after Flammarion
Screenprint on cotton paper

"My art practice is founded on printmaking and sculpture, 
and my series of printed-paper baskets present a way to combine the two art mediums. 
I base my basket forms on the traditional birch bark baskets 
that first nations women across North America have made and used for millennia
 to store and cook food and to carry water. 

Collection of baskets by Linda Jules (Canada)
Screenprint and collagraph on cotton paper

I use screenprint and collagraph images of trees found near my home in Kamloops
 to simulate bark patterns on the outsides of the baskets. 
Trees are a recurring subject in my work; 
they symbolize my sense of place and are a metaphor for many things – 
shelter, the family, the natural world, and the individual in society. 
Within each basket, I place an element of self-portraiture 
that also acknowledges the powerful draw of the mythological: 
a magpie nest symbolizing the home; water patterns symbolizing the female element, 
a wood nymph symbolizing my childhood."

For more information about Linda's work see www.lindajulesprints.com

In the near future, I will hopefully be featuring one of Linda's upcoming projects;
a group of international sculptural printmakers
who will be exhibiting together at Southern Graphics, Portland, next month.

20 February 2016

Wanting To Sell A Printing Press?? List It Here For FREE!

Have you got a printing press to sell???
List it here on NZ Printmakers page for FREE and NO commission!


I have recently received a number of requests from printmakers
asking for help with information about any presses for sale
The last press listing sold within days, with many enquiries.
Why pay 8% commission on TradeMe?!

If you'd like to list a press for sale, email me (nzprintmakers@gmail.com)
along with details (size, age, condition, locaion, shipping, etc) and photos.


Deborah Crowe, NZPPA 2016

Congratulations to Deborah Crowe 
receiving the Merit Award at last night's NZ Painting and Printmaking Awards,
for her recent work Fictional Realities: Fall.

Deborah Crowe, Fictional Realities: Fall, 2015
Archival pigment print on Ilford fine art paper, 70x120cm

"Fictional Realities: Fall houses a fabricated environment 
where architectural frameworks and elements of the ‘natural’ world intersect. 
Part field photography, part proposition, 
this work responds to developments in built and natural surroundings, 
and is concerned with environments in which space and place tangle with residue from human occupation. 
Complex slightly dilapidated structures house internal spaces 
in a composite world where beauty and toxicity are neighbours."

Deborah Crowe, Fictional Realities: Fall, 2015
Archival pigment print on Ilford fine art paper, 70x120cm

Check out more of Deborah's images and information about her work
 www.deborahcrowe.net

19 February 2016

Print As Performance, 5March, Dunedin

Barry Cleavin and Dee Copland will be hosting a conversation
that considers 'the Way of the Print': Ideas, Means and Materials.
The event will take place 2-5pm on Saturday 5 March at the artists' studio.

Tickets are $60 each, and limited numbers, 
Please spread the word to other printmakers and friends who may be interested.


18 February 2016

Call for Entries: International Miniature Print Exhibition, by 15 April

The Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition (BIMPE) 
is held every two years in Vancouver, British Columbia. 
The ninth Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition is now accepting submissions!


BIMPE is a showcase for small scale works 
measuring no more than 15×10cm (4x6 inches), 
and is open to images made using all printmaking techniques 
from traditional line etching to contemporary digital processes.

Winner of BIMPE VIII:
Roger Dewint (Belgium), Soufflé, 2014
 Etching

Tsuboi Fusano (Japan), Live, 2014
Aquatint & etching

3rd Place Award for BIMPE VIII:Nicholas Poignon (Germany), Building I, 2014
Linocut

Deadline is 15 April 2016. Jurying will take place in May.
The exhibition will be held in the Fall of 2016. 
For more information, see http://www.bimpe.com/

16 February 2016

2016 New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, 20-28Feb, Hamilton

2016 New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards
will be exhibited at the Hamilton Gardens, from 20-28 February.

Supreme Award Winner from 2015 New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards:
Nicol Sanders-O'Shea

There are many printmakers listed in the finalists
(including my friends Elle Anderson, Valerie Cuthbert, Deborah Crowe,
Struan Hamilton, Toni Mosley, John Pusateri - just to name a few!)
so I'm looking forward to seeing the results, announced this weekend!
I'll try to put up images from the awards after they are released.

I don't really have much more information on this event,
so for the full details, check out WSA's website: http://www.wsa.org.nz/awards.aspx
Who is going???

Rodney Fumpston, 17Feb-19March, Wellington

Rodney Fumpston's New Works are being exhibited at Solander Gallery,
opening on 17 February, through to 19 March.

In his new suite of laser engravings and the accompanying mezzotints, 
Rodney Fumpston continues his preoccupation with his sense of place, 
the exoticism of foreign travel and his relationship with the natural world- especially with gardens.

Rodney Fumpston, Wave, 2015
Laser engraving, 61x40cm, edition of 10

Fumpston sees this new work as anthropomorphic portraiture 
using sea forms collected in recent years of tropical beachcombing. 
This body of work uses laser-engraved Perspex plates and colouring 
that emulates the printing techniques of early postcards and souvenir items. 
There are references to the effect on the environment 
of the tourist’s insatiable need for the ubiquitous holiday souvenir.

Rodney Fumpston, Violet Head, 2015
Laser engraving, 60x90cm, edition of 25

Fumpston’s was born in Fiji and spent his formative years there 
until moved to New Zealand in the 1950s. His family shifted many times. 
This early experience shaped his future to becoming an itinerant traveller as an adult. 
In 2004 he returned to Fiji and bought a house in the vicinity of his childhood and created a lush tropical garden. 
Since then he has largely divided his time equally between Auckland and Fiji.

For more information about these works,
see http://solandergallery.co.nz/rodney-fumpston-new-works

15 February 2016

Artist Profile: Kheang Ov

Kheang Ov was born in Battambang, Cambodia, in 1975,
and came to NZ with his parents and younger brother in 1981 as refugees.
Kheang labels himself as a Cambodian Chinese,
who speaks a mixture of Teochew, Khmer and English.


Kheang's first memory was being in a refugee camp in Mangere, Auckland, at the age of 6.
After a year of induction, they began their new life in Dunedin.
Although Kheang's parents were not accustomed to the food, weather or culture,
they worked incredibly hard to provide for their new future here in New Zealand.

Kheang Ov, Going with the Flow, 2014
Woodcut

Woodcut is Kheang's medium of choice;
the action of cutting and the way marks are produced is unique.
It is expressive, gentle, yet dynamic and personal.
Each cut tells a story with every layer as a partnership to communicate as a visual language.

Kheang Ov, My Lucky Friends, 2013
Reduction woodcut

“My work explores the idea of discovering and re-discovering the familiar and un-familiar. 
My goal is not to unearth specific answers or memories 
but to bring about a journey of co-discovery 
which enhances the integration, of thought, feeling and self-hood.”

Kheang and his wife Nicola are both art teachers in Auckland.
For more information, see their website, www.printstudio72.com

14 February 2016

Alexis Neal, 17Feb-19March, Wellington

Alexis Neal's exhibition New Works will be on at Solander Gallery, Wellington
from 17 February to 19 March.
This new body of print and woven inspired by Pura Te Manihera McGregor (1855 - 1920), 
her life, her people and her place of birth in Whanganui.

This series builds on a suite initiated through an artist residency at Tylee Cottage in Whanganui.
Alexis pays homage to a remarkable Maori woman, Pura Te Manihera McGregor (1855 – 1920).
Pura was a wahine toa (warrior woman), community leader & first Maori woman to receive an OBE. 
Alexis bridges both past and present in this exhibition merging the boundaries 
between taonga and contemporary art with a series of lithographic and woven works.

Alexis Neal, Where the River Meets the Sea, 2015
Lithograph on tea-stained paper, 30x40cm, edition of 12

The suite of Carte de Visite (calling cards) lithographs were created to set the scene 
of the period Pura lived in and try to capture the essence of the woman. 
These 14 paired small lithographic prints look closely at early 1900s portrait photography 
and are boxed framed and hedged displayed as free standing objects.

The Whariki (woven works) are a new extension of this work that represent Pura’s contemporaries, the Raranga Whakairo (plaited pattern weaves) are exploring notions of war, 
Waharua and interpretations of Mumu, strongly significant to Whanganui. 

Alexis Neal, Ake Tonu Atu - For Ever and Ever
Lithograph on tea-stained paper, 30x40cm, edition of 12

For more information, see Solander's we

12 February 2016

50 Prints In 50 Hours, 3-5 March, Auckland

50 Prints In 50 Hours is a print marathon happening jointly in Adelaide and Auckland,
co-ordinated by Simone Tippett (in SA) and Toni Mosley (NZ).

In Auckland, the event will be held at Nathan Homestead in Manurewa,
starting at 9am on Thursday 3 March, and finishing on Saturday morning. 
Toni is keen to hear from any printmakers who would like to join, for 2 hours or more.
If you are super-keen, participants are able to stay overnight on location.

This is a collaborative project between the participating artists. 
Printmakers can bring their own screens, old plates, stencils, 
and other print supplies to help create these one of a kind images. 

Print by Toni Mosley

The project is about having fun, building local printmaking connections in each city 
and growing an active community of Australian and New Zealand printmakers 
who will work and print together into the future. 

Each group will produce 50 themed monoprints during a public print marathon. 
25 prints from each group’s set will be exchanged with the other group. 
Two exhibitions of prints will be hung later in 2016, 
one in Adelaide and the other in Auckland, with all prints available for sale. 

For those interested in participating during an part of the event,
please contact Toni at sea2mtnprint@gmail.com or 021430014

11 February 2016

Artist Profile: Nicol Sanders-O’Shea

Nicol Sanders-O’Shea majored in printmaking
at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland,
completing a masters degree with first class honours in the mid-1990’s.

Nicol Sanders-O'Shea, with her screen printed diptych Exchanges
the Supreme winner at the WSA NZ Painting and Printmaking Award 2015

Since then she has continued her print practice, screen printing for over 20 years, 
and has been teaching printmaking at several tertiary institutions. 
She is currently the Programme Coordinator for the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic
 for the new Bachelor of Creative Industries programme and senior academic staff member.

Nicol Sanders-O'Shea, Home Cloud, 2014
Screenprint, mixed media, installation size 300x300cm

"My works are created with multiple screen-printed illustrations and found object stencils. 
I use the process of screen-printing to construct the work, 
built up in several layers to subvert or disrupt the implied meaning 
in my investigation of memory, fiction and interpretation. 
It is an attempt to create a visual record of my mixed recollection and observations, 
as child or parent, something I have witnessed past or present, reality or fiction.
My work supports and contradicts the reproductive nature of the printmaking process. 
These print works are not editioned; 
instead I play with repetitive and reproductive printed elements within each work".

Nicol Sanders-O'Shea, East of Eden, 2015
Screenprint on board
Merit Award, Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards 2016

Last year Nicol was the supreme winner of the WSA NZ Painting and Printmaking Award 2015 
for her screen printed diptych, Exchanges.
Also, her work East of Eden recently won a merit award 
in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards 2016.