Archive for August 2023
MAGGIE HOLLINS: An artist in the Winton Wetlands
Maggie Hollins in Winton Wetlands Photo: Doug Spowart
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In my current practice I aim to observe, absorb, and have a conversation with, a place. I document the physical and intangible qualities of the landscape and use the materials I find at that place to honour its essence. I want to draw more attention to the need for a biotic interaction with our surroundings.
Since 2016 I have been inspired by the Winton Wetlands. I have documented the changing seasons and evidence of previous habitation at the Winton Wetlands with my photography. My engagement with the Winton Wetlands has led to the creation of woollen wall hangings and ephemeral artworks at the site. Found materials I have used in this exhibition will also become ephemeral works when I return them to the Winton Wetlands.
I have long been aware of the Winton Wetlands but it was not until 2016 that I engaged fully with the site. I visited the site often and became a Friend of the Winton Wetlands which allowed me to see some projects up-close being completed. I did some ephemeral works at the site and some felted works inspired by the wetlands. One felted work is included in this exhibition.
2022 saw my renewed interest in the site and together with colleagues, Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper, we set out to discover the intricacies of site. This exhibition is the result of our collaboration.
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ABOUT MAGGIE HOLLINS’ WORKS
Maggie Hollins with “Harmony” PHOTO: Doug Spowart
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Guided by the water, tree branches and barks, fallen feathers, leaves and grasses, I have participated in the narrative of the Winton Wetlands.
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Maggie Hollins’ ‘Recognition of the Past”, “Shelter” &”The Dead Stags”
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These natural elements, coloured ghostly grey on my textiles are a spectral testimony to their origin. The found metal shards authored the presence of others’ existence and together with the natural elements these works were fused by the hot sun. My textile works aim to celebrate the resilience and vitality of the wetlands ecosystem while eliciting the many distant voices of this special place.
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Maggie Hollins “Drifting on a Current” Photo: a collaboration
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Feathers drift and amass in favourite resting places in the wetlands. I have often watched in awe at the murmuration of birds in the wetlands. My kinetic work aims to evoke a floating pattern of flight.
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I have attempted to use my collage works as a metaphor for the layered past of the site to script stories of drought and flood, along with species that have occupied the wetlands.
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The simple woven works aim to invoke the symbiosis binding all existence. The found materials will become ephemeral works when I return them to the site.
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Maggie Hollins “Layers of the Wetlands”
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CONTACT MAGGIE HOLLINS:
instagram.com/maggie.hollins and maggiehollins@gmail.com
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Winton Wetlands logo
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WINTON WETLANDS VISIT: https://wintonwetlands.org.au/
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The artists wish to acknowledge the Winton Wetlands team for their support.
We acknowledge the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people & their 8 clans the original owners of Country.
We respect their deep enduring connection to their lands and waterways and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.
We honour and respect their ancestors, their Elders past, present and emerging.
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Most documentation photos and the video b Doug Spowart. The on-location photographs were a collaborative production by all 3 artists.
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IN THE WETLANDS: 3 Artists – Cooper + Hollins + Spowart collaborate, drawing inspiration from Winton Wetlands
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PALIMPSEST Exhibition artists in Winton Wetlands
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The Winton Wetlands in north-eastern Victoria, also once known as Lake Mokoan, has been through many changes from farming to the building then decommissioning of a dam. Now this visually haunting and beautiful place is undergoing a new phase of regeneration – reviving the natural state of living wetland environment.
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Dr Lisa Farnsworth, Winton Wetlands Restoration Manager, has been working with local artists to form a group that finds inspiration for their art in the Wetlands. She comments:
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The Winton Wetlands Creatives Group is driven by a passion for the natural beauty and cultural richness of the Winton Wetlands Reserve. Through various art mediums and engagement opportunities, the group aims to advocate for the Winton Wetlands restoration project and for the ongoing protection and appreciation of its cultural and ecological assets. I’m genuinely excited to see how art, culture and ecology can align to create great outcomes for the health of our local people and natural landscapes.
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Artists Victoria Cooper, Maggie Hollins + Doug Spowart
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In the spirit of Lisa’s vision we formed a collaboration with fellow Benalla artist Maggie Hollins to create a visual response to the Winton Wetlands inspired by its layered human and natural history and contemporary renewal. In our work we have associated this altered landscape with the concept of a palimpsest – a manuscript that was reused by writing new text over the previous words.
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The Palimpsest features again in the exhibition where the collaboration between us as artists can be experienced as a layered narrative, where multiple stories and experiences intertwine to form a cohesive whole.
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Check out our INSTAGRAM Project picture trail https://www.instagram.com/wetlands.palimpsest/
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3 Invitations for the exhibition in BAINZ GALLERY in Wangaratta
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SOME VIEWS OF THE EXHIBITION
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SEE A FLY-THROUGH VIDEO OF THE EXHIBITION
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A COMMENTARY ON THE EXHIBITION …
Victoria Cooper, Maggie Hollins and Doug Spowart have collaborated to produce and display a wonderful and diverse visual exhibition. They have sought to associate the altered Winton Wetlands landscape with the concept of a palimpsest. In doing so they are contributing to discussion of different, yet overlapping, stories of the wetlands.
Cooper and Spowart have been involved in the arts as practitioners, teachers and commentators for a lengthy time, including having residencies at Bundanon. Hollins has qualifications in ceramics, leads art workshops and enjoys playing fiddle. Unsurprisingly therefore, each and every artwork displayed is of a high standard.
There are unique, handmade textural and sculptural artworks by Hollins that use a diverse variety of materials – including found small branches, knotted bark, dyed cotton thread, solar and rust dyed cotton fabric, metal rings, and found grasses. They are accompanied by postcard sized images of the same artworks “displayed” on site in the wetlands. Those images were a team effort – Hollins operated the camera, Cooper was location scout and camera assistant, and Spowart did the lighting and Director of Photography duties.
There are larger standalone photographic prints and collaborative diptychs by Cooper & Spowart conveying stories of witnessing, magnificent 3 metre wide concertina photobooks by Spowart displayed folded out and attached to the wall, plus artist books and poetry by Cooper.
It all comes together splendidly, successfully conveying the messages the artists want visitors to hear.
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BRIAN ROPE Reviewer for and member of the Canberra Critics Circle
Read Brian Rope’s full review HERE
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LATER POSTS WILL FEATURE MORE ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & THEIR WORKS …
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SEE MORE ABOUT THE WINTON WETLANDS …
Winton Wetlands website Home page
CLICK HERE FOR THE WINTON WETLAND’S WEBSITE
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Winton Wetlands logo
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The artists wish to acknowledge the Winton Wetlands team for their support.
We acknowledge the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people & their 8 clans the original owners of Country.
We respect their deep enduring connection to their lands and waterways and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.
We honour and respect their ancestors, their Elders past, present and emerging.
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CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE: The Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize – Muswellbrook Art Centre
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Recently we were part of the judging team for the 2023 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP) which is coordinated by the Australian Photographic Society. The Award is acquisitive and is offered nationally with a value of $25,000. The Mullins Prize seeks to find Australia’s best conceptual photographic works where the means of work presentation are unrestricted, inviting photographers to illustrate the intent of their works through a myriad of mediums. The finalists are exhibited and judged at the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre.
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JUDGE ELOISE MAREE’s PRIZE ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH
Eloise Maree announces the winner
It’s been a pleasure and a privilege judging the 2023 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize here at Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, on Wanaruah Land. I’ve really enjoyed observing the ways in which the works dialogue with one another, as well as the dialogue they bring about in their observers.
I am pleased to announce that CHRIS BOWES is the WINNER of the 2023 MCPP with his work SUN KISSED #1–4. The fact that Chris Bowes has two works within this finalists exhibition is a testament, I feel, to the strength of his artistry.
Sun Kissed #1-4 is concurrently simple – coloured film imprinted with light as the sun rises and sets – and complex – non-representational landscapes, at once simulacras and originals, motion and stasis, photography and meteorology. Congratulations on beautifully distilling and expanding the definition of landscape photography.
Chris Bowes is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Naarm (Melbourne), on the unceded lands of the Kulin nation. Bowes is a first time MCPP finalist and receives the 2023 MCPP $25,000 cash Prize.
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Chris Bowes Sunkissed #1–4
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ARTISTS STATEMENT: “Sun Kissed” is a series of experimental photographs created using a hand-made camera that, rather than capturing a representational image, instead captures the colour of light. They are presented in pairs, each pair containing an imprint of the light at sunrise and sunset over the course of several days. As such, the work’s aim is to reduce landscape photography to its most basic form, imbuing photographic film with an impression of the sun rather than capturing it washing over the environment.
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Roger Skinner with the Adjudicators
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COMMENTS ON THE ADJUDICATION BY JUDGE LEN METCALF
The 2023 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize is an incredible and important exhibition. It shines as the leading art photography prize, and as such is a showcase of what photography can be. That is the point of it isn’t it? To question what photography is, to push the boundaries into new areas, to test assumptions and explore the photographic visual medium beyond its established boundaries. The resulting exhibition does this exceptionally well.
This visually stimulating, emotionally charged and intellectually challenging exhibition is the culmination of a long judiciary process. Firstly 450 entries are digitally catalogued and the adjudicators, Eloise Maree, Victoria Cooper, Doug Spowart and myself (Len Metcalf) carefully start examining each entry. We carefully considered each of the artworks, the multiple images that accompanied many of the works, sizes, the titles, and the artists statements. From here we all picked a selection to be a finalist and to be exhibited. Interestingly, there was only one overlapping artwork, a testament to the diversity in background and aesthetics of the panel, but most importantly to the diversity and quality of the entries.
Thirty artworks were bought together for the exhibition at Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, an interesting and stimulating mix of work. As we wandered around the exhibition the quality and the breadth was overwhelming. As was the daunting task of choosing only one winner. I joked that we could randomly choose a winner and argue how deserving it would be.
Adjudicators deliberating
The adjudication panel, over the better part of a day, wandered around and discussed every artwork in depth. Examining in detail, considering the artwork in front of us as it was presented. It was mentally exhausting and incredibly rewarding.
When we came together, reflecting on all of those conversations, there had been one artwork where all the judges glowed as we hovered around it, the conversation was stimulating and illuminating inspired by the artwork. A quick check with all the judges and the decision was unanimous.
The judges agreed to each choose their own to add four additional highly commended awards.
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ABOUT THE HIGHLY COMMENDED AWARDS
Judith Nangala Crispin’s A flying saucer over Clyde Mountain, shows Declan, dead at two hours old, how to make a new body out of light
Judith Nangala Crispin A flying saucer over Clyde Mountain, shows Declan, dead at two hours old, how to make a new body out of light
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Doug Spowart comments on Judith Nagala Crispin’s Highly Commended work
The very name of this prize ‘Conceptual Photography’ demanded of me to seek out works that went beyond the reality of normal visual captures and that dealt with and idea transferred to a photographic outcome. Though Crispin’s work is firmly embedded in a range of photography and, perhaps even pre-photography techniques what excites me is the caring and poetic narratives she creates that connect the death of the animal recorded and its spiritual resurrection.
ARTISTS STATEMENT: This is part of a series of afterlife portraits of birds and animals, ascending between earth and outer space. I place cadavers on emulsion, creating images with a Lumachrome glass printing sun printing, cliché-verre and chemigram. Decomposition chemistry creates colour and detail. Each print is exposed 30–50 hours in natural light. This work draws on my experience of tracing my family’s Aboriginal ancestry. I am trying to honour the lives of animal and birds with whom we share this planet.
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Arrayah Loynd’s I don’t always understand/selectively mute (diptych)
Arrayah Loynd I don’t always understand/selectively mute (diptych)
Victoria Cooper comments on Arrayah Loynd’s work
This work is hard to walk past but equally hard to look at. The artist’s statement and title resonates with the images. Loynd embedded concepts of identity, crisis and trauma in the layers of this deeply confronting work.
ARTISTS STATEMENT: I don’t feel like I belong in my body, it feels awkward and uncomfortable like an ill fitting suit. I live in a constant state of confusion…of others, of myself. I am not who they say I am, I am not who you think I am. I am no one and nothing, I am everyone and everything, So come and find me, but only in the small moments when I want to be found. I make no promise that I will be there. (neurodivergence/trauma)
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Melanie Cobram’s The Colony Reclaims the Land
Eloise Maree comments on Melanie Cobram’s The Colony Reclaims the Land
Within this work, Melanie’s photographically ‘captured’ landscapes are terrorised and territorialised by a colony of termites (I’d be curious to know if the termites were a native or introduced species). I really enjoy the way the termites’ interventions extend beyond the photographic negatives to the matboard, just as this photoseries extends discussions on migration, citizenship and belonging beyond the usual frames of reference. Congratulations on creating such a thought-provoking work, Melanie.
ARTISTS STATEMENT: The Colony Reclaims the Land is a series of 35mm negatives depicting the Australian landscape, intervened by a colony of termites. The negatives were fed into a termite mound and crossed over by the colony as it travelled assiduously across the nest. The work plays with the dialogue of living on colonised land by inviting a native colony to reclaim its own image. The termites’ subtle topographical drawings reconcile landscape and language, eliciting conversations about migration, citizenship and belonging.
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Jess Leonard’s I knew at the Time
Len Metcalf’s comments on Jess Leonard’s I knew at the Time
‘I knew at the Time’, by Jess Leonard is fascinating as it is one of the few artworks in the exhibition that adheres to a more traditional approach to the photographic medium. Or is it? The artwork and the narrative asks the viewer so many questions. Ones that remain unanswered by the work. We are left with discussions and questions. As the artists says in their artists statement, ‘themes of women, the body and place, memory and mystery… The story you walk away with is yours to believe.’
ARTISTS STATEMENT: Perhaps uncanny and slightly disorientating this work explores themes of women, the body and place, memory and mystery with only a fragment of the narrative presented before the viewer. The story you walk away with is yours to believe.
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THE FINALISTS
Name Artwork Title
Alex Walker Manual Exposure
Anna Carey Crystal Mystery, 2022
Annabelle McEwen Self Scan B (photogrammetry)
Arrayah Loynd I don’t always understand/selectively mute (diptych)
Ben Kelly Dimension
Chris Bowes Dip/Dunk #1
Chris Bowes Sun Kissed
Chris Byrnes Beyond the Photogram Chasing Alison No 1 Dawn Light
Damian Dillon Bourgeois Cha Cha #7
Dave Carswell Flocculation #2
Holly Schulte Swell (37)
Jacinta Giles For the Birds?
Jenny Pollak Free Fall
Jess Leonard I Knew At The Time
Judith Nangala Crispin A flying saucer over Clyde Mountain, shows Declan, dead at two hours old, how to make a new body out of light
Katrina Crook Untitled#1 (In Silence)
Kelly Marie Slater Landshapes: Pass between Needles
Kenneth Lambert Burden of Proof (Data Portrait of Magdalene)
Kim Percy Sway
Marcus O’Donnell (De)Composition – a dark ecology
Matthew Schiavello Under the Sea
Melanie Cobham The Colony Reclaims the Land
Nicholas Hubicki Vitichiton (the end of the forests)
Nikky Morgan-Smith Index
Peter Rossi Unchopping A Tree
Regina Piroska I Followed A Worm (accordian book)
Stephen Blanch The Acrobat and the Flea (Flood Loss, Lismore 2022)
Tebani Slade Of me in the landscape
Wouter Van de Voorde Uncontrolled
Yianni Maggacis The Good Room XII
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Chris Bowes 2017 PHOTO: Doug Spowart
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CHRIS BOWES’ COMMENTS ON RECEIVING THE PRIZE
Published on his social media after the Prize’s announcement …
Chris Bowes’ @quisbie
Well, this was a pleasant surprise.
I’ve been making art for over a decade, and yesterday was probably the highlight of my career so far. Ever since I made my first conceptual project Sweat nine years ago, I’ve been wanting to create a process that captured some of those ideas using ‘landscape’ photography. When I first picked up a camera 15 odd years ago, my main interest was shooting landscapes. This focus transitioned to conceptual photography while I studied, and it completely changed the way I viewed and used the medium. What I’m most excited about is that this prize money will go back into the photographic community by supporting my new venture @kindredcameras.
It feels really validating to win a competition like this, but I feel conflicted about competitions because while I’ve come out on top, there are lots of other amazing artists who were just as deserving of the win. I want to acknowledge the significant time and money that artists put into being a part of these things with the unlikely hopes that they’ll win the big prize. It’s often a huge financial burden and an emotional rollercoaster. The work from all the other artists in the show is incredible, and I hope you go and have a look at their practices
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ABOUT THE ADJUDICATORS
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Eloise Maree PHOTO: Doug Spowart
Eloise Maree
Eloise is an artist and arts worker privileged to be living and working on and with Gundungurra and Wiradjuri land (Blue Mountains and Bathurst, New South Wales).
Eloise is a photographic artist utilising wet plate photographic processes. Eloise is interested in the relationships between people and place, in the history, and historical processes, of photography and in ‘creative histories’. Eloise’s camera-original wet plate photographs are both historical (hand sensitised using a silver nitrate solution, for example) and contemporary (shot using modern lenses, for example, and or lighting). This locates Eloise’s photographic art in the past as well as the present, and this colocation enables Eloise’s revisionings of histories and archives.
Eloise is experienced by way of Craig Tuffin as well as by way of Ellie Young of Gold Street Studios, a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) (Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney) and a Master of Museum Studies (the University of Sydney).
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Len Metcalf PHOTO: Doug Spowart
Len Metcalf
Len’s journey towards photographic education began long ago, with the gift of his first camera as a young boy in the Blue Mountains, and his first teaching experience in a local Scout troupe at fifteen years old. After graduating from High School, Len took a job as an outdoor educator in Kangaroo Valley to support himself through a Visual Arts degree, majoring in Photography.
This was the beginning of a lifelong quest to combine his passions for adventure, education and photography. While studying Fine Art, Len had the opportunity to learn from fine teachers such as George Schwartz, Eardly Lancaster Julie Brown-Rrap and Lynn Roberts Goodwin at the City Art Institute (now Faculty of Fine Arts at NSW University).
He graduated with straight distinctions and received the coveted award for ‘Most Outstanding Advanced Colour Photographer’. Turning down two corporate photography sponsorship offers, Len instead pursued a career in education and outdoor adventure. Photography became his unbridled passion and his escape from work. During his 30-year career in the education sector Len worked with numerous schools and businesses as an experiential educator, facilitating learning outcomes through experiences in the outdoors.
In the tertiary education sector Len worked at the University of Technology, Sydney in the Faculty of Adult Education as course coordinator and lecturer in the Bachelor of Teaching program. Later, he took on a role in the TAFE system as a vocational trainer designing, developing, coordinating and running some of the best industry courses in the world for over twenty years.
After 30 years as a facilitator, educator and trainer, Len was ready to pursue a new direction. He completed a Graduate Diploma in Art Education at Sydney University and a Masters Degree in Adult Education at the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2000 Len founded Len’s School. Since then he has been teaching, mentoring and guiding photographers in some of the most spectacular landscapes in Australia, from arid deserts and windswept coasts to his backyard in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
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Cooper+Spowart PHOTO:Spowart/Elliott
Cooper+Spowart
Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart are visual artists with an extensive practice as individuals and in collaboration. Both have completed individual PhD studies in photography, photobooks and artists’ books. Cooper and Spowart have been finalists in many photographic art awards and been the recipients of major prizes.
They have also judged photography, artists book and photobook awards, and have lectured nationally and in New Zealand. Their work including prints, artists’ books and photobooks has been acquired by regional and state galleries and also by the prominent art book collections of State Libraries, the National Library of Australia and the British Library.
In social media they contribute to the Instagram accounts @wotwesaw (Victoria) @woteyesaw (Doug) and their practice commentary blog www.wotwedid.com. They are the founders of the Centre for Regional Arts Practice, The Cyanotype in Australia and New Zealand and the Antipodean Photobook (also Blogs and Facebook groups).
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Doug and Barbara Mullins PHOTO: Trevor Bower
ABOUT THE AWARD’S BENEFACTORS: DOUG AND BARBARA MULLINS
In 2009, Barbara Mullins provided the Australian Photographic Society with a bequest in memory of her husband, the late Doug Mullins, President of the Society 1964-1966. This bequest was part of the proceeds from the sale of Mullins Gallery, the former headquarters of the South Australian Photographic Federation of which Doug was Patron.
At that time the bequest was intended to support the regular publication of an APS book of members’ work. In 2011 the first edition of APS Gallery was published. In 2012, the APS celebrated its 50th anniversary and a second book was published. No further books have been created and the balance of the bequest has since grown through interest earned.
Seeking to ensure the long-term future of its new Australian Conceptual Photography Prize introduced in 2019, the Society approached the Mullins family with a proposal that would satisfy the intent of honouring both Doug’s and Barbara’s significant contributions to the APS. There was much synergy in the proposal with the style of Doug’s exhibition photography in the Prize, and in Doug and Barbara’s generous support of the arts and the Art Gallery of SA.
In early December 2019, approval was received to apply the balance of the bequest funds to the Prize. The Society has, therefore, retitled the prize as the Mullins Conceptual Photography prize (MCPP) and it will be a permanent reminder of Barbara and Doug Mullins.
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The coordinators of the MCPP are Brian Rope and Roger Skinner – Thank you for your enthusiasm, energy and hard work to help make the Prize happen.
Roger Skinner and Max PHOTO: Doug Spowart
THE MULLINS CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE gratefully acknowledges all their supporters and sponsors:
• Bengalla Mining Company www.newhopegroup.com.au
• Ilford www.instagram.com/ilfordphoto/
• MACH Energy www.machenergyaustralia.com.au
• Malabar www.malabarresources.com.au
• Australian Photography magazine www.australianphotography.com
Thank you to Eliose Maree and Len Metcalf for their texts. Some texts edited from the APS and MRAC Releases and SM posts
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©2023 All photos by Doug Spowart
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wotwedid 