Archive for the ‘Cyanotypes’ Category
CYANOTYPE IN AUSTRALIA Celebrates World Cyanotype Day 2020
CYANOTYPE 2020 MOSAIC
The world is in a pandemic turmoil but beneath the stress, pain and fear of what some call the ‘new normal’ artists have continued making their art. During this time online connectivity has provided the space to coalesce communities of practice across the world where ideas and creative products can be shared, discussed, recognised and critiqued.
Cyanotypers worldwide celebrated 2020 WORLD CYANOTYPE DAY on the 26th of September by making cyanotypes, presenting work in exhibitions and online through their social media platforms. In the USA there are dedicated groups that have continued to support the medium: Db Dennis Waltrip, Judy & Amy and the World Cyanotype Day web and Facebook group; Malin Fabbri‘s Alternativephotography.com; and Amanda Smith’s Gallery in Texas. These people have created the glue that brings together cyanotypers from around the world.
Two years ago The Cyanotype in Australia Facebook Group was formed to bring together contemporary cyanotype work for presentation in major survey shows to celebrate Australian practioners from across the country on World Cyanotype Day. The first show in 2018, ‘In Anna’s Garden’ was presented at the prestigious Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne. Last year ‘Under the Southern Sun’ was shown at The Maud Street Photo Gallery – The Queensland Centre for Photography. This exhibition then toured to two venues in the USA: the A. Smith Gallery, Texas, and PhotoNOLA, New Orleans for the international World Cyanotype Day exhibition.
The Cyanotype in Australia Facebook group has actively supported a vibrant community of practice of not only local, but also international cyanotypers. This year, we decided to curate the World Cyanotype Day event online through the Facebook Group page as this space enabled many artists from across Australia and internationally to contribute during these challenging times. We asked our Facebook Group members to select a cyanotype that may have been their first print, an image of a current process investigation or a work that tells a story. Forty-three Australian and a few international Friends responded and posted their work on the page.
This catalogue has now been collated to show the breadth and creative work of these artists. We are again excited to present the amazing work of Australians including our international friends on The Cyanotype in Australia for World Cyanotype Day 2020.
The Cyanotype in Australia Facebook page is a closed group though we welcome ‘Requests to join’ from cyanotype practitioners.
Doug Spowart,
with Gail Neumann, David Symons and Victoria Cooper are The Cyanotype in Australia Team
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A GALLERY OF WORKS CAN BE SEEN HERE
More information about these works can be found in the catalogue
Download the catalogue via this link ____WCD 2020 CATALOGUE-FINALv4
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Over the last two years the CYANOTYPE IN AUSTRALIA Facebook group has coordinated major events to coincide with this celebration.
the ‘In Anna’s Garden’ catalogue
In 2018 an exhibition entitled “IN ANNA’s GARDEN” was curated Stephanie Richter, Gillian Jones, Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for showing at the Monash Gallery of Art.
A blog post for this exhibition can be viewed HERE
A download of the “In Anna’s Garden” catalogue can be accessed HERE
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INVITE: Under the Southern Sun
2019 saw the assembly of a group of Australian cyanotyper’s works to be sent to the A. Smaith Gallery and Photo in New Orleans for the WCD International exhibition. The cyanotypes were firstly shown in the exhibition “UNDER THE SOUTHERN SUN” at The Maud Street Photo Gallery – The Queensland Centre for Photography.
A blog post for this exhibition can be viewed HERE
A download of “Under the Southern Sun” catalogue can be accessed HERE
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Father’s Day: A remembrance in an art project
Father’s Day 2020 – Thinking of our Dads
In 2010 artist, and then gallerist, Julie Barratt put out a call for artworks that asked artists to respond about their Fathers and their passing.
The request from Julie Barratt is as follows:
This project was borne out of the recent sudden death of my father, a handkerchief, some emotive words written by a sibling on his death and the traumatic aftermath of a death processed according to particular societal and cultural mores. Interested artists and Individuals are invited to create an artwork on a handkerchief (any handkerchief not necessarily a man’s) based around death/grief/bereavement.
We reflected on our connection with our Fathers and created artworks using the cyanotype process.
Doug’s Hankie
The WHITE KNIGHT – for Merv by Doug Spowart
MERV: The White Knight
My father was an electrician for around sixty years. He always wore King Gee white overalls—even when we went on holidays.
Ever ready to help someone in need he would dash off at a moment’s notice—even when the family organised an outing on the weekend we would always fit in another job along the way.
Over the years he helped many an electrically troubled soul so we, his family, dubbed him the nickname – “The white knight”.
Victoria’s Hankie
Dad’ll do it – for Reg by Victoria Cooper
Dad’ll do it
I remember that he always tied knots in his hankie to keep it in place on his head and to soak up the sweat when he was working on things around the home. He had lived in this home (in the photo) for most of his life except for the time he was in Papua New Guinea for WW2 and shorter periods of time in other places. Over the years he adapted and renovated this home to suit the changing needs of the family.
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Barratt Gallery Invite
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The exhibition was shown at Barratt Gallery at Alstonville and Napier Gallery Melbourne
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A post about the exhibition can be found HERE
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A TASMANIAN CYANOTYPE: Untitled Found Objects by Victoria Cooper
Untitled found objects a cyanotype by Victoria Cooper
Untitled Found Objects is created from a collection made of invasive starfish species colonising parts of Tasmanian waters and a map-shaped beer coaster found discarded in the streets of Hobart. In this work I play with these found objects and speculate on their relationship with Place.
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Found objects: Starfish and Tasmanian coaster map.
When I take the time to study a place through photography and Material Thinking* history is unearthed, reconsidered and reordered. As I walk in each place, I identify and collect objects for further study. Some objects are commonplace or endemic while others may be discarded or dislocated dissonant interventions. I then utilise the cyanotype process as a site-specific medium to record these collections using sunlight and other environmental conditions as experienced in-situ. In this work the cyanotype forms a blue matrix in which these objects are imaged as their shadows. The shadowy imprints inhabit the blue as white ghostly forms referential of their solid origins.
The final work of blue and white is a paradox between its fiction and truth, the featureless blueness only revealing form by its absence. To think about the cyanotype in this way ushers in many questions: Is the cyanotype blue a political or aesthetic statement? Do the white shadows speak of absence or are they the essence of a presence? Does the reader need an exegesis to understand a poem?i
Victoria Cooper
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Untitled found objects exposing the cyanotype
*The concept of an aesthetic methodology proposed by Paul Carter in his book, Material Thinking, defines my art, and underpins the making of my work. Through a psychological dialogue with materials, subjects and objects, my work evolves reflexively and in concert with the response to physical experience of time and place. In this process I am taken in new directions and presented with unexpected outcomes for the work.
Just as human collaborators needed to suspend an irritable desire for control of the project, substituting instead a lover’s readiness to be plastically moulded by the other’s (intellectual) desire, so with materials: they self selected, those of especial value to enquiry displaying gifts of amalgamation and self transformation analogous to the emotional environment characteristic of the human exchange. (Carter 2004:xiii)
Paul Carter, 2004, Material Thinking, Melbourne University Publishing Ltd, Melbourne.
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©2019 Victoria Cooper
WOTWEDID BLOG CELEBRATES 100,000 VIEWS
100K Header
Our www.wotwedid.com blog reached the milestone of 1000,000 views last week. It has had 56,000 visitors who have had the opportunity to view 380 posts and read around 250K words and see the hundreds of photographs that we have made to compliment the stories.
Our wotwedid Blog was started nine years ago as an opportunity to connect with our friends and creative communities via social media. The topic cloud for the wotwedid Blog includes ARTISTS’ BOOKS, PHOTBOOKS, CAMERA OBSCURA, EXHIBITIONS, MEETING PEOPLE, THE ART AND PRACTICE OF PHOTOGRAPHY, REGIONAL ARTS, CYANOTYPES, PLACE PROJECTS and POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH.
Topic cloud wotwedid
Usually the content that we post is generated by us and includes the written commentaries, the photographs and illustrations – it can be quite a lengthy time consuming task to get a blog up.
While many posts relate to what we do, have done or will be doing, the Blog represents a chronology of activity in our art practice, our lives and issues that we are concerned about. Due to the contemporary space that the arts and artists occupy today much activity and many events go unnoticed and unrecorded. So a significant driver is to provide a space for commentary on what is happening outside of the popularist ‘art bubble’.
Early this year we were excited to learn that the State Library of Queensland had nominated wotwedid.com for inclusion in the Pandora Archive managed by the National Library of Australia, ‘to ensure the collection and long-term preservation of online publications relating to Australia and Australians. This objective contributes to the Library’s statutory function to comprehensively collect Australia’s documentary heritage.’
Over the years we have found that many views, screen dumps and downloads of resources we make available take place anonymously without comment or feedback. Then again, we understand that this is the same for most online resources. Despite this we find that as we travel and meet friends, fellow artists, academics and curators many say how much they appreciate and enjoy the content that we generate and post.
So, a BIG Thank You to all have visited … And we look forward to your return to help take www.wotwedid.com to the next milestone – 200,000K views.
D+V with masks
Vicky+Doug
PORTRAIT PHOTO: Susan Belperio
Here are some images of people met, events documented and our own art activities over recent years …
©2020 Doug Spowart+Victoria Cooper
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Our photographs and words are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/..
AUSTRALIAN CYANOTYPES on exhibition at home & in the USA
INVITE: The Maud Street Photo Gallery Under the Southern Sun exhibition
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For over a year we have been coordinating with Gail Neumann the Facebook group THE CYANOTYPE IN AUSTRALIA. In June of this year we circulated through our networks an Invitation for Australian cyanotypers to submit work for a travelling exhibition to be shown in Brisbane, Australia and then Texas, USA to link with World Cyanotype Day celebrations on September 28, 2019. This work will be first shown at The Maud Street Photo Gallery, Brisbane in August and will then travel to the USA to be part of two international exhibitions, one at the A Smith Gallery, Texas in September, and then at PhotoNola, New Orleans in December.
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THE BRIEF FROM THE INTERNATIONAL WORLD CYANOTYPE EXHIBITION COORDINATORS:
The exhibition theme Land/Sea/Sky with the exhibition abstract being: Most ancient peoples had no word for the color blue. They could not explain the sky nor the ocean. Poetry and love letters suffered. Once “blue” entered the world the earth rattled and chimed, sending forth “turquoise” and “sapphire.” The Navajo and the Jewelers rejoiced. Poets wept. Picasso danced and Policemen beamed. Mary smiled.
It was hoped that everyone in the world making cyanotypes that could be connected with was invited to create the cyanotypes on white cloth, each 12×12 inches (30×30cm) and that they will be strung together, the flags symbolize the beautiful planet we all inhabit.
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Install day at the A Smith Gallery 24 September
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CYANOTYPERS FROM OVER AUSTRALIA RESPONDED TO THE CALL-OUT
Here are their images:
THE EXHIBITION AT THE MAUD STREET PHOTO GALLERY
The installation at The Maud Street Photo Gallery PHOTOs: Gail Neumann
THE CATALOGUE
A catalogue about the Under the southern sun project featuring each submission, artist’s statements and exhibition documents has been collated, the cyanotypes copied and designed by Doug Spowart. The catalogue forward states:
The Cyanotype in Australia is a photographic medium that continues to be enthusiastically utilised by a growing group of creative practitioners ranging from analogue photographers to fine art printmakers.
While the process and the chemical formulas may be the same the resulting images vary depending on the subject chosen and the creative input of the cyanotypist. This is proven by this body of work and the plethora of potential outcomes presented. And sometimes, as with the vagaries of the process, many results may be a surprise to the author at the time the image is washed-out. Such is the nature and the promise of things hand-made.
We are excited to contribute this collection of cyanotype flags to the 2019 World Cyanotype Day Celebrations at the A Smith Gallery in Texas and PhotoNola in New Orleans in the U.S.A.
The catalogue
FREE TO DOWNLOAD HERE: AUSTRALIAN_WCD_CATALOGUE-Final
THE BEHIND THE SCENES
THE CYANOTYPE IN AUSTRALIA Team coordinated:
- A gallery exhibition at The Maud Street Photo Gallery in early August that will include an opening event
- The packaging and shipment of the ‘Flags’ to the USA by the due date
- The creation and distribution of social media content promoting the Australian artworks and their makers
- A PDF catalogue of all contributor’s works
- And later the return of the works to their makers on conclusion of the project.
A fee of $40 was charged to all participants
This project, by The Cyanotype in Australia team, was curated by Gail Neumann, Victoria Cooper + Doug Spowart with assistance from David Symons.
The gallery installation team: Gail Neumann, Victoria Cooper, Irena Prikryl, David Symons and Doug Spowart
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BEAUTIFUL FRUIT – Tilley Wood+Linda Spowart
Beautiful Fruit Invite
Beautiful Fruit installation in the Sidespace Gallery at Salamanca ………. PHOTO: Doug Spowart
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A Fruitful Place – a review by Victoria Cooper
Place, of course, as opposed to the more generalized ‘site’ or ‘land,’ is a specific collaboration between nature and people, constantly altered and inevitably defined by narratives from the contact zones.[1]
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative interaction between the artists, the cotoneaster tree and its environment. The intent was to create visual responses to observations of the tree and its rhythms over time that forms:
… a dedication to and recording of this tree. Its life is multifaceted, one that connects to and affects the space and people around it. Its vital and variable presence is what they are drawn to and present here. This exhibition is the fruit of the artists and subject together.
Tilley Wood artist with light 4 + light 5, 2019 Oil on canvas ………. PHOTO: Doug Spowart
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Although Linda and Tilley approached the project from two different perspectives both were influenced by the phenomena of light and wind to define the tree, its form and movement. Tilley’s paintings of the tree evoked a poetic place illuminated by memory. Linda’s prints were layered using cyanotype photograms[2] or inks in contact with parts of the tree and its surroundings, then over printed with gesso and drawings were full of detail referencing the visual language of botanical illustration and empirical scientific evidence gathering.
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Debris 1 Linda Spowart 2019Ink, gesso and graphite on cotton ………. PHOTO: Doug Spowart
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As part of their investigation, the artists individually and collaboratively created through direct contact with parts of the tree: leaves, fruit and branches, they made more cyanotype photograms. These prints were more like impressions, rather than the detailed recording of scientific photographs. On one wall at the entrance to the main gallery there was an impressive installation of these blue prints creating a feeling for the tree’s blue shadowy and dappled light space.
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Beautiful Fruit Nos. 3-13 Tilley Wood+Linda Spowart 2019 Wet Cyanotype & gold leaf on cotton
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The cotoneaster tree was both subject and collaborator in this exhibition. As part of their investigations, the artists attached drawing devices to branches of the tree in order that it would self record its movement without the intervention of the artists’ hand. This is an important methodology for many artists as it opens up an inclusive space where the agency or ‘voice’ of objects and other life-forms as collaborators can present new and surprising perspectives. Australian artist, Cameron Robbins[3], presented the drawings that were formed through devices attached to a windmill to record the movement of the wind around Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart, Tasmania. Robbins intent was
… to connect to landscape, and to the greater dynamic of the whole climate system; how patterns move through a particular location. For me, that’s the most direct way to access the greater energies and forces around us.’ Cameron Robbins[4]
Tree Drawings #0001- #0026 ………. PHOTO: Doug Spowart
Art when made in collaboration with both human and non-human entities involves a corporeal, sensate empathy that evolves over time spent in contact within their space and place. These are dynamic contact zones where human and nature interaction can stimulate the development of alternative views and knowledge to bring fresh ways of understanding the changing world we share with Others. Both Tilley and Linda have engaged with the Place that is the tree, not to objectify or imitate, but to wonder, imagine, transform and be transformed.
Dr Victoria Cooper
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NOTES:
[1] Stuart, M & Lippard, L 2010, Michelle Stuart, Sculptural Objects: Journeys In & Out of the Studio, Charta, Milano, page 11.
[2] The Cyanotype process was developed by Sir John Herschel in the 1840’s and at this time 19 th century botanist Anna Atkins used the process to document her plant specimens. The process: water colour paper or cloth is coated with a chemical made by the light sensitive combination of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. After drying, objects placed on the material and then exposed in sunlight. Ultra-violet light is required and exposure times may be 8-10 minutes although times may vary depending on the time of year – or day. Many photographer also expose enlarged contact negatives of photographs onto the cyanotype emulsion.
[3] Cameron Robbins, Field Lines, MONA see https://mona.net.au/museum/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/cameron-robbins-field-lines
[4] ibid. an in-text quote from the article by the curators, Nicole Durling and Olivier Varenne
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MAKING BLUEPRINTS TODAY–Our World Cyanotype Day Australian Submission
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Making cyanotypes in Tasmania
We created some cyanotypes yesterday to contribute to the Australian World Cyanotype Day (WCD) travelling exhibition. Setting up a coating studio inside a friend’s house in Cygnet Tasmania we exposed the sensitised material on the front veranda and washed-out on the shadow side of the house. It all sounds rather an impromptu affair and in some ways it is, as travelling artists we have encountered these challenges before making-do with the site-specific needs of each art-making opportunity.
But what is difficult in Tasmania right now is the weather. We’ve been ready for weeks to make cyanotypes and yet the pervading conditions have been overcast or scattered heavy clouds between sunny gaps, rain or fog. And as cyanotypes work best with clear, bright and directly overhead sunlight it has been difficult. Added to this mid-winter’s low angle of sunlight at 43°south means exposure times have to be extended 3-4 times that commonly achievable up the east coast of Australia.
Making cyanotypes is a process that takes place over time. Chemicals are mixed, the substrate coated with a brush. On this occasion we were printing on cloth and due to the ‘flow-through’ the material we coated a few sheets sitting on top of each other. These super wet sheets then needs to dry. Cloth takes quite a while to dry due to the large amount of chemical absorbed in the fibers although drying can be accelerated by using a blow heater or hair dryer.
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Coating the material…
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Next a series of test exposures may need to take place to know, in the specific sunlight conditions you may be working in. After exposure the material is washed-out in running water – we add a little citric acid. And for an accurate density check the sheet needs to be dried a little. Then you can make your first exposure. At the moment in Tassie we’ve been working with 15 minute exposures!!
BOM – looking for gaps between the clouds
All this means that you may start out with sunny skies, do your tests and then start you exposure and the clouds come in – the Bureau of Meteorology website is regularly monitored to make sure that you have an adequate time over which to work.
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Making the exposure…
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Washing out after exposure…
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Finally it’s hung up to dry …
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10 starfish that are an invasive species with 8 bones of a Tasmanian wallaby by Victoria Cooper
Vicky’s work is a response to contemporary land and sea issues in Tasmania. The image is a double-sided cyanotype – shown here is the transparency of the work with the blending of the two images.
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Swatches of blue: a colour of Tasmania by Doug Spowart
Doug’s cyanotype continued his experiments in direct light-strike on cyanotype sensitised materials. On this occasion the folding and refolding over the duration of the exposure creates a pattern of different blue densities. These emulate, like colour swatches, the different hues and tints of blue in the Tasmanian landscape. This is also a double-sided cyanotype that in this photo is still quite wet and yet to dry down.
Both cyanotypes have been made on linen material and are about 30 centimetres square. The linen was purchased at a local charity shop as second-hand white pillowslips. The A Smith Gallery presentation of these fabric squares has them pegged to lines running across the gallery ceiling where they appear like flags.
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In The Maud Street Photo Gallery
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The cyanotypes that we have made will be included in an exhibition of Australian cyanotypers at The Maud Street Photo Gallery in Brisbane during August 2-15. The exhibition is being co-curated by The Cyanotype in Australia team Gail Neumann and us (Vicky+Doug), and will bring together works from all over the country. It is a follow-up exhibition to the WCD exhibition ‘In Anna’s Garden’ curated by Stephanie Richter, Gillian Jones and us at Monash Gallery of Art last year.
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In Anna’s Garden
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This year’s show is entitled ‘Land/Sea/Sky’ and the show at The Maud Street Photo Gallery is just the beginning as the works will be forwarded to the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City Texas for showing on World Cyanotype Day along with other works from across the world. At the end of the A Smith Gallery show the works will be sent on for exhibition in New Orleans at the PhotoNOLA Festival.
Participants in the exhibition will make a contribution to the costs of the Maud show as well as courier delivery to the U.S.A. and back home to Australia.
AN INVITATION TO ALL AUSTRALIAN CYANOTYPERS
An invitation has gone out through various networks inviting cyanotype makers to participate in the Australian WCD Travelling exhibition. If you make cyanotypes please consider being a contributor to the show. If know someone who does please let them know about the exhibition and pass on to them the AUST_WCD_SUBMISSION.
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For information about The Cyanotype in Australia and to join the the group’s FACEBOOK page: CLICK HERE
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To Download a PDF copy of the catalogue for the MGA exhibition click the link: In_Anna’s_Garden-CATALOGUE-FINAL-INT
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1788–January 25th, the next day, and now
In 2010 we wanted to make an artwork to comment and reflect on Australia Day and some of our feelings about the origins of the date – the implications of that event and the repercussions that we live with and navigate today. Through a scorchingly hot day in Toowoomba we worked with cyanotype solutions and selected objects – some from our home and others sourced from the food scraps from a local seafood smorgasbord restaurant on the day.
The work that we did that day emerged as the collaborative artists’ book, a broadsheet we titled, Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788.
A statement about the artwork
Across Australia over the January 26th long weekend, people prepare, cook and consume food to mark this day in history.
For us, this work is our response to, and in recognition of, the ‘turning of the page’ in Australian history that this date represents. One day, January 25th 1788, Aboriginal people feasted on a diverse banquet of bush tucker as they had for thousands of years. The next day, the country was transformed by a new paradigm represented in this work by the table setting of the First Fleet.
Australia Day, for us, is an important time to acknowledge the First Peoples’ perspective and their knowing of land, culture and history and how it should be recognised as underpinning the diversity and identity of contemporary Australia. We, as descendants of European people, are seeking to understand and know more about our place within the longer history of this land.
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View 1: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
The 25th of January side of the broadsheet is viewed and contemplated.
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View 2: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
The broadsheet is then turned over to view the 26th of January side.
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View 3: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
Finally the broadsheet is held up to the light – the complex interrelationship between the two visual references to be seen and considered.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A unique state artists’ book broadsheet
TITLE: Australian Banquet January 25/26, 1788
MEDIA: Double-sided cyanotype image in rice paper
DIMENSIONS: 37.6 x 77cm
PLACE & DATE MADE: Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, 2010
EDITION: 7 variations
EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS:
2015 EXHIBITED: Books by Artists, The Webb Gallery as part of the Artists Book Brisbane Event, Conference at the Queensland College of Art, Brisbane
2014 EXHIBITED: Alternative Imaging – Curated by Dawne Fahey at Two Doors Gallery, The Rocks, Sydney
2011 SHORTLISTED: Southern Cross University Artists’ Book Award, Lismore. Judge: Ross Woodrow
2011 EXHIBITED: BLUE – Arts Council Toowoomba members exhibition, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery
2010 FINALIST: Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award,
………………………Gold Coast City Gallery. Judge: Judy Annear
COLLECTIONS: Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland
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CYANOTYPE IN AUSTRALIA @ MGA – An exhibition & Workshop
We are excited to announce an exhibition of the work of Australian cyanotype practitioners for World Cyanotype Day 2018 has now opened.
Over the last month we’ve been working with Stephanie Richter and Gillian Jones of Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne to bring together the cyanotype works by artists from north Queensland to Tasmania to exhibit in the MGA’s ATRIUM GALLERY.
We also presented a one day masterclass on the cyanotype and the book.
In Anna’s Garden: Poster
The exhibitors are:
Adele Outteridge, Ann Vardanega, Chris Byrnes, Christina Harding, Danielle Minette, David Symons, Dawne Fahey, Deanna Hitti, Felicity Rea, Gael E Phillips, Gail Neumann, Jan Ramsay, Janis House, Kate Golding, LeAnne Vincent, Linsey Walker, Lloyd Godman, Lynette Zeeng, Mark Lourensz, Mel Brackstone, Mollie Bosworth, Raimond De Weerdt, Renata Buziak, Robyn Campbell, Shane Booth, Silvi Glattauer, Sue Clisby, Thomas Oliver, Trevor Foon, Stephanie Richter, Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart.
the ‘In Anna’s Garden’ catalogue
A copy of the exhibition catalogue can be dowloaded ‘In Anna’s Garden’ CATALOGUE
A video of the gallery installation can be seen here…
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THE STORY OF THE EXHIBITION from Victoria Cooper + Doug Spowart
For around 2 years we have been members of the World Cyanotype Day Facebook page and have followed the work and comments made by cyanotypists from all over the world. When the call went out about the 2018 World Cyanotype Day (WCD) we shared the post on our Facebook page with the message, ‘wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could have an exhibition of practitioners from Australia to celebrate WCD’. Within minutes our Facebook Friends started responding with supporting comments like, ‘WOW, I’d like to be a part of that!’ Within 24 hours about 20 ‘Likes’ and comments appeared – we then thought about how we could make it possible.
In September we were scheduled to be in Melbourne so we made some enquiries with a few contacts about the possibility of an exhibition space that we could consider for the project. Things went quiet for a while and we sent out a few follow up messages. Then came a response from Stephanie Richter, the Monash Gallery of Art’s Education & Public Programs Coordinator, that the Community Access space at MGA could be available. After consultation with the Director Anouska Phizacklea and the MGA team the go ahead was granted to mount the exhibition and present a masterclass in the process. An event team was formed consisting of Stephanie, Gillian Jones – a recent Master of Arts and Cultural Management student from Melbourne University with Vicky and myself.
A Facebook Group was established and people who we knew were practising cyanotypists were invited to join. Through our contacts in alternative and traditional photography we enquired about other cyanotype workers that we should be aware of to extend to them an invitation to contribute to the show.
In time documents outlining the project, conditions of submission and important aspects of the venue and the audience were generated and made available online. Some invitees were contacted via email, as they were not Facebook users.
The closing dates for submissions, delivery to the gallery and installation all had tight deadlines. The FB group was able to provide a rapid distribution of information, an ability to respond to questions and circulate the answers back to the group. Behind the scenes the event team connected via Facebook Messenger to plan, resolve and prepare the way for the exhibition. Early in September the works were received at the gallery and a 3-day installation took place by the event team supported by artist Deanna Hitti. The exhibition was opened on the 15th of September and will remain on show until the 21st of October.
In Anna’s Garden presents a diverse and vibrant community of cyanotype artists and photographers working in Australia. Although the exhibition is not a complete survey, it does represent a beginning in recognizing the practice of this process in Australia. Also planned is the continuation of an openly accessible ‘The Cyanotype in Australia’ Facebook page to provide a place for networking and the sharing of concepts, techniques and images with the local, national and international communities.
The growing popularity of this early photographic process could seem strange at a time when instant perfection is so easily achieved through digital technologies. Perhaps the allure for the cyanotype lies in its hand-made working methods and technologies along with the potential for capricious results that inevitably lead to an excitement in the discovery new ways of seeing. For many the emotional power of the cyanotype’s blue image continues to create new perceptions through visual expression and storytelling 176 years beyond its first discovery.
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SOME IMAGES FROM THE EXHIBITION
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wotwedid 
BRITISH LIBRARY Acquires our cyanotype artists’ book
with 4 comments
A statement about the artwork
Across Australia over the January 26th long weekend, people prepare, cook and consume food to mark this day in history.
For us, this work is our response to, and in recognition of, the ‘turning of the page’ in Australian history that this date represents. One day, January 25th 1788, Aboriginal people feasted on a diverse banquet of bush tucker as they had for thousands of years. The next day, the country was transformed by a new paradigm represented in this work by the table setting of the First Fleet.
Australia Day, for us, is an important time to acknowledge the First Peoples’ perspective and their knowing of land, culture and history and how it should be recognised as underpinning the diversity and identity of contemporary Australia. We, as descendants of European people, are seeking to understand and know more about our place within the longer history of this land.
.
View 1: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
The 25th of January side of the broadsheet is viewed and contemplated.
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View 2: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
The broadsheet is then turned over to view the 26th of January side.
.
View 3: Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
Finally the broadsheet is held up to the light – the complex interrelationship between the two visual references to be seen and considered.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A unique state artists’ book broadsheet
TITLE: Australian Banquet January 25/26, 1788
MEDIA: Double-sided cyanotype image in rice paper
DIMENSIONS: 37.6 x 77cm
PLACE & DATE MADE: Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, 2010
EDITION: 7 unique state variants
SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE BOOK’S HISTORY
COLLECTIONS, EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS:
2020 COLLECTION: British Library
2015 EXHIBITED: Books by Artists – The Webb Gallery as part of the Artists Book Brisbane Event, Conference at the Queensland College of Art, Brisbane
2014 EXHIBITED: Artist’s Books (reprised) [artists’ books 1978-2014] – George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne
2014 EXHIBITED: Alternative Imaging – Curated by Dawne Fahey at Two Doors Gallery, The Rocks, Sydney
2011: COLLECTION: Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland
2011 SHORTLISTED: Southern Cross University Artists’ Book Award, Lismore. Judge: Ross Woodrow
2011 EXHIBITED: BLUE – Arts Council Toowoomba members exhibition, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery
2010 AWARD WINNER: Martin Hanson Awards, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery – Works on Paper
2010 EXHIBITED: Art Bound – Red Gallery, Glebe, Sydney
2010 FINALIST: Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award – Gold Coast City Gallery. Judge: Judy Annear
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Text and © Doug Spowart+Victoria Cooper
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Written by Cooper+Spowart
January 26, 2020 at 1:20 pm
Posted in Artists Books, Cyanotypes, Wot happened on this day
Tagged with 1788, artists' book cyanotype, Australia Day comment, Australia Day in art, colonial Australia, cyanotype, Helen Cole, invasion day, January 25/ 26, View 1: Australian Banquet