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A Hard Place

A Hard Place

A Hard Place is an accumulation of a year’s work of exploring and documenting the scratchings, words and dirty graffiti left by individuals in local places. The words written by people who shouldn’t be there but tell the world they are there, and they are here, and they exist, and they have thoughts, and they want to tell you or anyone, something. I am interested in how those things stack up over time and become a palimpsest of mark and colour. Moreso, I am interested in how these things interact with the environment and my own lived experience. 

These pieces were first exhibited at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery in Cape Town as part of the small group show “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” (August/September 2022). They were also exhibited at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair in London (November 2022). At the Fair, “Marginalised narratives” was selected by Marek Claassen as a top collector’s pick. The screen print piece “No promises” has recently been acquired by the Art Bank of South Africa, tasked with curating a definitive collection of contemporary South African visual art.

A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place

On reading the book “A sense of place” on the Scottish artist Joan Eardley, what struck me was her description of her painting practice… “I find the more I know of the place, or of one particular spot, the more I find to paint in that particular spot. I do feel the more you know of something, the more you can get out of it, the more it gives to you.” And so, some summers, Joan set up and painted the same vista every day, in every weather, each time allowing her attention to be drawn and swayed by different aspects.

 This made me think more about the yellow lichen covered rocks that I pass each day on my walks. It gave me the idea of tackling them in every way that I know how. I wanted to lay the rich yellow ochre paint on a canvas, and I also wanted to carve the shape in wood and print it. I wanted to stitch it onto a small cloth, making the shape with hundreds of short lines, coming together as one. So, I decided to do all these things, enjoying the place and the pull, feeling the edge of it, until it is enough.

Cape Nostalgia

Cape Nostalgia

In a time of uncertainty, there have been places that I have crept to, again and again, to settle myself and calm my unravellings. These are the spaces I present in a series of multilayer reduction woodblocks – layers of monotone, slowly built up to achieve the quiet and permanence of the place.

Circling Crows

Circling Crows

Swirling moments in time, feeling disoriented and unsure.  Translated to layered mind captures.  A series of multiple block linocut prints. I started with the red/blue combo then moved to steel/rust. Then, because I loved how the layers were all visible, I made them properly so, with translucent ink and an additional layer.

Drypoint Intaglio

An image is scratched or incised onto a plastic matrix, producing gouges and lines of various depth, and a burr that is pushed up as the plastic surface is displaced. The scratched plate is inked up by forcing the ink deep into the grooves and allowing it to catch on the burrs.  This ink is printed onto damp paper, and has a typical velvety line that I love.
Head Under Water

Head Under Water

A series of semi abstract reduction woodblock prints inspired by photographs taken of the artist/self, submerged under water, from above. The edges of the form are broken and with no clear start and end to the body, it becomes a part of the environment.

Discombobulated soups of self-portrait. An examination of the disparate parts of self that make the whole, and how these parts interact with each other and the environment. A reference to a space that makes the artist feel that she is safe and can breathe. Under water, the edges of the artist are blurred, her body and the liquid push pull hold.

And then a retreat into the mind, where the body floats under the tannin rich dark umber waters of the Cape, naked and without encumbrance. If the artist were to exhale, she would slip a little further below the surface, and quite soon be invisible, hidden by the dissolved minerals and botanicals coexisting with her in the slippery liquid. She is holding her breath. She is searching for self. For the essence that makes the person.

Immersion

Immersion

I have taken to spending more and more time in remote places, allowing the feel and fleeting light and shadows to slowly seep into me. To facilitate this, I resumed a habit of sitting alone and making watercolour sketches of what I see. These sketches have morphed into a series of woodblock prints in Western and Japanese style. Reduction and multiple block prints with a focus on how it feels, immersed in that moment.
Inevitable Life

Inevitable Life

A chain of thoughts that started with a poignant visit to my parents in Dullstroom, just before COVID-19 became a reality in our lives. My thoughts about our space, our lives, how we choose, how we interact and connect and how we deal with events that we cannot control. Single block linocut in pared-down black, using careful mark-making to produce detail and depth.
It’s not about the dog

It’s not about the dog

Artwork about appetite for life, personal attitude and how you claim your space. My superb (late) dog Batista, happens to be the symbol for this message. This series includes a stretched landscape in the drypoint intaglio technique, featuring simultaneous views of my favourite landmarks in the local Skilpadsvlei. The small reduction linocut pop-style prints each have a message about living life your own way.

Message Cloths

A thought or message that I place on a cloth with free hand embroidery, so that the message can be passed onto someone who needs it or wants what it says.  Words, symbols and marks in thread, on layers of botanically printed and dyed scraps, from my textile work.

Monotype Print

A monotype print is one that is not duplicated.  There is only one of each.  I make monotype prints with both oil based and watercolour ink, building up the image on a sheet of plastic by either painting or wiping away the ink.  The plate is printed onto damp paper.  Sometimes, sufficient ink remains after the first print, to allow for a faint ghost to be printed too.

Multiple Layer Linocut

A build up of colours or tones is achieved by printing over the same piece of paper many times, either with different linoleum blocks, or one block that is cut away in the reductive technique.
Natural Mark Making

Natural Mark Making

This collection includes textiles and textile papers, naturally marked through botanical contact print and dye. These pieces are exhibited in galleries, either framed or suspended, allowing the viewer to determine the appropriate treatment.  Some of these pieces are collaboration pieces with other fiber or paper artists.
Passing me by

Passing me by

I have a fascination with trains and industrial machines and the role they play or used to play in our lives.  A few pieces in the drypoint intaglio technique, mixed in with hand colouring and underlayers printed off the back end of vinyl. Life rushing by.
Perspective

Perspective

The idea that separation from a situation, without the overstimulation of the minutiae of domesticity and outside influence, allows for a reconsideration.  No longer fed thoughts, instructions, and directions from society, the path is rediscovered, based on the instinct and intuition that nature and life experience provide. This series of reduction linocut prints, in translucent inks, is an exploration of abstract surface design based on the pattern of rural life from a small plane, flying over Tanzania.

Single Block Linocut

An image is carved or cut into linoleum or a similar matrix.  The remaining surface is inked up and printed onto paper.  The simplicity of single block is deceptive, as the mark making needs to be skilled enough to provide detail and depth and story, in only one colour.
The Residuals

The Residuals

The idea that thought, energy and experience linger in a place, recorded on the surfaces of rock, droplets of water and the suspended particles in air and liquid. A residual energy, reluctant to leave, pooling in the space or mounting up as a palimpsest on soil, rock, flora and the very structure of a natural or man-made environment.

Woodblock Prints

Carved into wood, the image is inked on the remaining surface.  Layers are printed onto the same sheet of paper, off multiple blocks or one block that is carved away in a reductive technique. I work in both the Western and the Japanese Mokuhanga styles.

On occasion, I use hand pulled screen print to augment my woodblock prints, or as a standalone technique.  I have grouped these artworks into the same collection as my woodblock prints.

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