Posts Tagged ‘Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery’
A RE-PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT Revisited at TRAG
Doug in the exhibition space … PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
SAME SITES HINDSIGHT – Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery
For me rephotography is a way of re-viewing place and change through a comparative documentation using the perspectives of earlier photographers. I have always enjoyed the challenge to re-align the contemporary view with the past to see visual narratives of change either subtle or profound. At this time I discovered the work by Mark Klett and others published in their 1984 book Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project. Their approach to the reimaging of the photographs of the American west by William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan and others in the 1860s was methodical and scientific. Although I was informed by this seminal work as a record of social and historical change, in some of my work I also enjoyed questioning the notion of the original photographers as a kind of truth.
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In the mid 1980s I rephotographed tourist postcard scenes in outback Australia and reimaged tourist camera photos placing them in the context of a wider-angled view. These projects were presented at the Araluen Art Gallery in Alice Springs in 1986 in the exhibition Tourists Facts, Acts, Rituals & Relics.
Other projects emerged including a commission from Di Baker, Director of the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery to locate the subject matter of artworks from the Toowoomba Gallery’s collection and to re-image the subject by photography.
The artworks that were my source reference covered a range of approaches to the artist’s vision imbued with the appearance of the painting techniques that they employed. Working with Victoria we travelled around the region to find the matching locations and met with some success finding the exact location. On occasion however we were only able to create a general locational view.
I chose a 4×5 large format camera and a black and white film made by Polaroid. Called Type 55 the film gave a black and white print and also a negative that, after in-field processing could be printed in a conventional enlarger.
The 1996 the exhibition NEW SIGHTS – SAME SITES was opened at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery and installation of the selected artworks were paired with our photographic interpretation of the same scene.
Now 23 years later the Gallery has re-presented the work for reconsideration by a new generation of art gallery visitors.
Don Featherstone (L) Golden Tree (Corner of Kitchener and Herries Streets)1959 watercolour Spowart+Cooper (R) Corner of Kitchener and Herries Streets 1996 silver gelatin fibre print
The Gallery wall sheet for the Same Sites Hindsights exhibition states:
In 1996 photographer Doug Spowart assisted by Victoria Cooper undertook a project called New sight-Same sites which re-imaged Downs landscapes and other regional sites depicted in selected works from the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery Toowoomba City Collection.
The project compared and contrasted the direct recording of a site using photography with the painter’s vision of the same location. One of the biggest challenges for Spowart in making these images was to replicate the painters’ viewpoints and, in some instances, even finding the locations proved problematic.
From the time of the initial recording to now, almost 25 years later, these photographs indicate constants and change. Time is transformational. In 1996, the Gallery challenged the photographer to identify these locations and in 2019 we challenge the viewer to explore Toowoomba and surrounds in response to these works.
The exhibition is on show from 14 September to November 3, 2019.
A selection from the subjects presented in the exhibition
C. G. S. Hirst The New Court House 1879 watercolour and ink on paper
Spowart+Cooper The Old Court House 1996 silver gelatin fibre print
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Herb Carstens Sunday Morning (Street scene Toowoomba) 1961 oil on comp board
Spowart+Cooper Sunday morning 1996 silver gelatin fibre print
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Brian Williams Near Drayton 1960 oil on comp board
Spowart+Cooper Near Drayton 1996 silver gelatin fibre print
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Ruby Spowart Clifford Gardens 1986 photograph Polaroid SX-70
Spowart+Cooper Clifford Gardens 1996 silver gelatin fibre print
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TRAG Display
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OTHER REPHOTOGRAPHY PROJECTS BY Doug Spowart & COOPER+SPOWART
LINK: SEEING DOUBLE Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery 2001 
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COOPER+SPOWART EXHIBITION: Speaking About Place
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Speaking About Place gallery layout
Speaking About Place: the Nocturne Project
Victoria Cooper & Doug Spowart
Cam Robertson Gallery, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, 19 July – 17 August 2014
Our arts practice is informed by our ongoing and evolving connection with Place. Our Place-Projects are influenced by the context and the consequences of living within a constantly changing landscape. We work with a range of photographic concepts and techniques, from the camera obscura, through analogue processes to the digital forms of the medium. Our work is presented as visual narratives in artists’ books, photobooks, exhibition images and, more recently, blogs and social media.
Through our Nocturne documentary photography and Facebook social media projects, we have explored connections with Place in urban and regional communities throughout Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. For us the phenomenon of nocturnal light transforms these everyday spaces. Buildings, busy street corners, quiet alleyways all become filled with the dramatic light of a movie scene. In 2013 and 2014 we were given the opportunity, through funded Artists-in-Residence (AIR) programmes, to undertake Nocturne projects in the regional communities of Muswellbrook, Grafton and Bundaberg.
In this exhibition we present a selection of images from three years of our Nocturne Projects. The work shown here adds to the recent Childers Art Gallery exhibition of this project, by the inclusion of social media elements. Therefore in this gallery we invite viewers to connect with the work in a forum outside the virtual space of Facebook. To enable this connection to take place we have created folios that contain transcripts of Facebook/Place/Storytelling from each of the three AIRs.
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About the photographs
We photograph in the early evening nocturnal light, a time of day where the afterglow of sunset and the glow of streetlights transform the everyday experience of place for the viewer. Images created at this time require long camera exposures and therefore produce photographs that can capture blurred movement of people and vehicles. Another important aspect of the Nocturne aesthetic is the effect of colour and the juxtaposition of coloured lights in the different situations of ambient daylight, artificial lighting, car head and taillights.
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Exhibition viewers reading Facebook responses
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More than photographs
The photographs in themselves have no intrinsic meaning – it is the viewer, with their experience and memory that brings life to the image. In this moment of connection they may recount a personal narrative or connect with the historical significance of the place. This collaboration between photograph and viewer is exciting and vibrant – expanding the potential for the documentary image to go beyond the vision of the photographer.
As the Nocturne project has evolved, we have discovered the importance of sharing place stories through images, words, in person and online. Through Speaking about Place we have extended the potential for this project to share the transformative nature of lived experience and everyday life in each community.
The Western Downs town of Miles is scheduled for a social media Nocturne project later this year.
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CLICK HERE To download a PDF of some of the Facebook narratives Catalogue-Comments-interact-FP3
Community comments about the photographs on Facebook
The online Nocturne Projects can be accessed at http://nocturnelink.com
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Link to The Toowoomba Chronicle online news story:
http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/showing-cities-in-a-new-light/2323064/
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A selection of images from the opening and associated events
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Toowoomba Chronicle photographer Kevin Farmer gets a Nocturne reverse-photo with us – From The Chronicle Instagram feed
Exhibition invitation featuring the Toowoomba Town Hall Xmas 2012
The opening of ‘Speaking About Place by Ashleigh Campbell
Some attendees at the opening
Maureen Trainor and Kevin Scattergood visit the show
Jess Martin’s Nocturne Cup Cakes…
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Visit http://nocturnelink.com to connect with our Nocturne Projects
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Installation photos and documentation of the artworks and text ©Doug Spowart
Instagram photo and news story © The Toowoomba Chronicle and Kevin Farmer
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My 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/
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MEMORY COLLECTIVE: Super Moon + Phoenix
Eighteen months ago Toowoomba artist Damien Kamholtz began a project that was to bring together a team of local artists to participate in a conceptual artwork that would have many states and private and public iterations. The first public presentation of the The Memory Collective was at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery in August/September 2013.
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Two weeks ago a key element of The Memory Collective project was altered yet again into a new state. This took place near Cabarlah at a symbolic time for Kamholtz, the recent super moon…
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Here is part of the document made on that July evening.
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Damien Kamholtz before the burning Photo: Cooper+Spowart
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The super-moon rising and the embers of the phoenix rising
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Aftermath of the fire
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Aftermath: ashes of the painting the next morning. Photo: Damien Kamholtz
…. this is not an ending for the Memory Collective…
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THE BACKSTORY OF THE MEMORY COLLECTION
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An exhibition of the collaborative artwork as a singlarity
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Memory Collective image from the exhibition @ Toowoomba Regional
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A painting and a performance
The Memory Collective painting by Damien Kamholtz
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The Memory Collective is a multi-disciplinary collaboration orchestrated by artist Damien Kamholtz. Kamholtz states: The Memory Collective Project is a creative collaboration between 12 artists across eight artistic disciplines exploring concepts and themes relating to the human condition such as change, constants, history, refection and memory. The artworks created during the project will make up an exhibition to be held at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery in September 2013.
There are different stages to the project. First Kamholtz created a large 2.2 metre square painting, while sculptor, Jessie Wright constructed the large vessel to hold the water. Kamholtz’s painting is embedded with personal meaning in the form of fragments of his past art, the ashes of diaries. In the presence of this artwork we are drawn into a poetic landscape where faces emerge; symbols and totems slip from passive dark spaces and come into conscious awareness.
The second stage of the work was the performance in the form of 9 responses to the painting by Kristy Lee. The painting and the pool created the reflective and reflexive performative space and the transformative process of the original painting then began. Integral to the space were David Usher’s delicate pots; these vessels contained the pallet of shades that then shrouded and clouded the memory of the work. Over the course of the day the painting’s physical form was transformed into something different loosing its current visual form as only a memory.
Our part of the collaboration was to witness, respond and record the transformation of the work over the day. The next stage of the Memory Collective’s work will continue over the next month our component will be to create 9 large collaged photograph memory states of the work for the show in September. Works by others include; a video art piece, a documentary video, a soundscape, interviews, prose and poems. It is a significant project and is being funded by the RADF and supported through the exhibition at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
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A fragment of photographic memories made by us for the MEMORY COLLECTIVE…
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Damien Kamholtz in the performance space with the painting and pool
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A performance
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Kirsty Lee and painting – in the early state…
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Kirsty Lee performs before the painting
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State 3 Kirsty applies paint to the paining…
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Hand paint
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Kirsty Lee and her interaction with the painting … around Stage 6
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Blue hand…
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Kirsty Lee in a frenetic stage…
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Kirsty Lee and brushes before the pool
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Paint fluid in the pool…
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Towards the final state…
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The final state …
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Additional material
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Damien discussing movement with Kirsty
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Kirsty Lee towards the end of the performance
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Another creative work from the performance by Jason Nash…
Jason Nash – Time lapse video
CLICK HERE to see Jason Nash’s ‘Memory Collective’ time-lapse video
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The Team: Front Ashleigh Campbell, Julio Dunlop, Kirsty Lee, Victoria Cooper, Doug Spowart
Back: David Usher, Jason Nash, Jesse Wright, Damien Kamholtz, Zac Rowling ( weakling).
Not present: Craig Allen & Jake Hickey
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Toowoomba Chronicle 17 June, 2013 by Kate Dodd PHOTO: Dave Noonan
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© 2013+2014 Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for The Memory Collective
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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ADVANCE NOTICE: Memory Collective Exhibition to open @ TRAG
The Memory Collective Invite
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The Team: Front Ashleigh Campbell, Julio Dunlop, Kirsty Lee, Victoria Cooper, Doug Spowart
Back: David Usher, Jason Nash, Jesse Wright, Damien Kamholtz, Zac Rowling (weakling).
Not present: Peta Chalmers, Craig Allen & Jake Hickey
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Photographer Victoria Cooper reflecting on the Memory Collective project
Vicky photographs Kirsty
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Both Doug and I, familiar with collaborative projects, were excited to have the opportunity to connect with the multidisciplinary space that Damien Kamholtz was creating in the Memory Collective. So it was on one day in May, that each artist would bring to the chosen site their insights, instincts and life’s experience.
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There was a painting – a very large painting; a sculpture filled with water, a ‘pond’ to reflect and dissolve the evolving performance; a movement artist to reconfigure the idea or memory of painting; seven white ceramic bowls to containing pigments and a singular bowl left empty to float across the dark water of the pond.
The physical space did not easily present itself at first–but as the project unfolded and discussion flowed from the practical, logistical to the intellectual, conceptual–the site itself also became a collaborator in the project: the stage, the remnants of its warehouse history, the idiosyncratic control over the method of entering the space (all us had to crawl under a jammed roller door)
Was the space asserting its role?
This day was not just a visual experience–it was a total sensory and psychological immersion.
Although a part of the documentary team, including video and still photography, I was compelled to cross beyond the voyeuristic role of witness. I was motivated by the tension created from: anxiety for the loss of the original painting with the frisson of anticipation for the evolving transformation.
The movement artist’s touch with the painting was sensual and slow.
We moved like moths; entranced by the night-light . . . circling . . . unable to land nor escape . . .
This was not a performance rather it was about life, unrehearsed and ephemeral. Only through technology were small parts recorded to be later pieced, montaged and sewn together in a kind of rich layered memory tapestry. And, like memory, there are gaps, fuzzy distortions of scale and time lines, loud visually busy moments together with quiet, serene and ethereal meditations.
I began this project with an intuition that it would be both inspiring and exhilarating to work with this creative group of Toowoomba based artists. Damien has, with delicacy and grace, enabled and cultivated a fertile collaborative space, which continues to extend the potential for the creative work.
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Kirsty addresses the painting in performance
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A recollection of the MEMORY COLLECTIVE collaboration from Doug Spowart.
Doug photographs the performace
Working as a regional artist can be an isolating experience. Your networks are often big city based, coastal and a long way from your home on the range. I am familiar with collaborative art-making but it has usually been with my artist partner Victoria Cooper.
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The Memory Collective was quite a different collaborative affair. As an individual artist I could never have thought up let alone coordinated, as Damien has, all of the interdisciplinary artists and artforms into one time–one space–one purpose–one artpiece. Meetings, Facebook discussions and site inspections enabled a real feeling of connection with the creativity of these fellow regional artists and their ideas, aspects of each discipline’s needs and potential for contribution.
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/memory-collective-a-performance-documentary-project/.
https://www.facebook.com/memorycollectiveproject
Kirsty Lee – the paint portrait
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Damien Kamholtz: ‘My Icarus’ @ TRAG the VIDEO
My Icarus invitation
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FROM THE ART GALLERY WEBSITE:
‘My Icarus’ is a culmination of one painting, one sculpture and one film. These three interrelated works delve into poetry and mythology and showcase the Gallery’s recent acquisition of Mr Kamholtz’s painting, ‘The Spit that Joins the Magic Together’.
The exhibition title refers to the artist’s fascination with Greek mythological figures, Icarus and Daedalus, and the works of 19th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
Additional creative ‘spittle’ for the performance was delivered in verse by guest speaker and former USQ lecturer in literature Dr Brian Musgrove with a simultaneous performance by Toowoomba movement artist Kirsty Lee.
The exhibition works include the recently acquired painting, an assemblage and a collaborative film produced by Mr Kamholtz, Jason Nash, Kirsty Lee and Craig Allen.
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Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery attendees witnessing the event
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Kirsty Lee in performance
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Photos and Video © 2013 Doug Spowart
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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MEMORY COLLECTIVE: A performance documentary project
The Memory Collective painting by Damien Kamholtz
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The Memory Collective is a multi-disciplinary collaboration orchestrated by artist Damien Kamholtz. Kamholtz states: The Memory Collective Project is a creative collaboration between 12 artists across eight artistic disciplines exploring concepts and themes relating to the human condition such as change, constants, history, refection and memory. The artworks created during the project will make up an exhibition to be held at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery in September 2013.
There are different stages to the project. First Kamholtz created a large 2.2 metre square painting, while sculptor, Jessie Wright constructed the large vessel to hold the water. Kamholtz’s painting is embedded with personal meaning in the form of fragments of his past art, the ashes of diaries. In the presence of this artwork we are drawn into a poetic landscape where faces emerge; symbols and totems slip from passive dark spaces and come into conscious awareness.
The second stage of the work was the performance in the form of 9 responses to the painting by Kristy Lee. The painting and the pool created the reflective and reflexive performative space and the transformative process of the original painting then began. Integral to the space were David Usher’s delicate pots; these vessels contained the pallet of shades that then shrouded and clouded the memory of the work. Over the course of the day the painting’s physical form was transformed into something different loosing its current visual form as only a memory.
Our part of the collaboration was to witness, respond and record the transformation of the work over the day. The next stage of the Memory Collective’s work will continue over the next month our component will be to create 9 large collaged photograph memory states of the work for the show in September. Works by others include; a video art piece, a documentary video, a soundscape, interviews, prose and poems. It is a significant project and is being funded by the RADF and supported through the exhibition at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
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A fragment of photographic memories made by us for the MEMORY COLLECTIVE…
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Damien Kamholtz in the performance space with the painting and pool
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Doug documents the space …… Photo: Victoria Cooper
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Kirsty and painting – in the early state…
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Kirsty Lee performs before the painting
.
State 3 Kirsty applies paint to the paining…
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Hand paint
.
Kirsty Lee and her interaction with the painting … around Stage 6
.
Blue hand…
.
Kirsty Lee in a frenetic stage…
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Kirsty and brushes before the pool
.
Paint fluid in the pool…
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Towards the final state…
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The final state …
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Damien discussing movement with Kirsty
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Kirsty Lee towards the end of the performance
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Another creative work from the performance by Jason Nash…
Jason Nash – Time lapse video
CLICK HERE to see Jason Nash’s ‘Memory Collective’ time-lapse video
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The Team: Front Ashleigh Campbell, Julio Dunlop, Kirsty Lee, Victoria Cooper, Doug Spowart
Back: David Usher, Jason Nash, Jesse Wright, Damien Kamholtz, Zac Rowling ( weakling).
Not present: Craig Allen & Jake Hickey
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Toowoomba Chronicle 17 June, 2013 by Kate Dodd PHOTO: Dave Noonan
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© 2013 Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for The Memory Collective
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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COOPER SCROLLS @ Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery
Victoria Cooper in the Off The Wall installation of three scrolls from the series of five
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ABOUT ‘THE STORIES OF THE GORGE’ ON SHOW @ TRAG
Victoria Cooper’s digital montage Stories from the Gorge scrolls, made over ten years ago were included in Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery show. The exhibition was entitled Off the wall and was on show in Gallery 2 and Amos Gallery in May 2013.
The information about the exhibition that follows comes from the exhibition room sheet prepared at the time by Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery Exhibitions Officer, Ashleigh Bunter:
The works in the exhibition have been selected from the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery’s City Collection. They have been placed simply together due to their three-dimensional nature and to highlight their derivation from the traditional two-dimensional picture plane.
This exhibition demonstrates the way that artists manipulate physical depth within their works which can often create a greater engagement between the object and the viewer. Interestingly, many of the works in this exhibition focus upon environment, whether it is the natural, public or the domestic environment. Materiality is also a common consideration. Throughout this exhibition one can see the influence of ‘the collector’, artists who gather images or common materials, reusing and reinterpreting them to create their art.
Victoria Cooper’s Stories from the Gorge: Order, chaos and the story of the hillside is a Chinese-landscape-scroll inspired series that represents “the last bastion of a natural chaos and order, an anti-culture, occurring on the fringes of agriculture.”[i] Human effects on the natural environment are central to Cooper’s practice and her prints and artists’ books in various formations lead the view from a flat two dimensional plane into the landscapes she investigates. These printed scrolls rise up from handmade acrylic boxes like the tall gum trees on their surfaces.
Other artists in the Off The Wall show include; Michael Schlitz, Marieke Dench, Tiffany Shafran, Judith Kentish, and Brigid Cole-Adams and the exhibition will be on the wall until May 26, 2013.
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PRIZES AND AWARDS
2001 The Gorge was purchased by Australian Library of Art at the State Library of Queensland
2001 – Photographer and gallery director Sandy Edwards awarded The Gorge, First Prize in the Muswellbrook Photography Award
2001 – MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor awarded The Cliff, First Prize for Works on Paper, Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum
2002 – Five Stories from the Gorge was a Finalist in the 2002 Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts Photography Award at the Gold Coast City Art Gallery was selected by Isobel Crombie Curator at the National Gallery of Victoria
2002 –The triptych was acquired during its showing in the Toowoomba Biennial Acquisitive Award selected by Julie Ewington, then Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery..
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Three images of the Stories from the Gorge triptych as presented @TRAG
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THE BACKSTORY OF THE SCROLLS AND THE SERIES OF 5 WORKS
Cooper’s scrolls were presented for the TRAG exhibition as a triptych, however in the original exhibition, entitled Searching for the Sublime, there were five scrolls. Searching for the Sublime was a collaborative project with sculptor Jim Roberts, fellow artist Doug Spowart and curator Deborah Godfrey. The inspiration for the project was a wilderness area in the Helidon Hills a mere 20 kilometres north-east of Toowoomba. Supported by an RADF Grant, the show featured Roberts’ sculptures, Spowart’s abstract water photographs, and Cooper’s scrolls and was shown at 62 Robertson Gallery in Brisbane in August 2001.
Searching for the Sublime @ Gallery 62 Robinson PHOTO: Courtesy of 62 Robertson
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Five Stories from the Gorge installation at SQIT Gallery
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The images were assembled as a photomontage in the tiny, by current sizes, Blueberry iMac computer. At times Victoria juggled 200 layers in one Adobe Photoshop document to create the fiction panoramas. Seeing the whole image was a problem as most of the time Cooper’s view was no bigger than the iMac screen requiring her to ‘scroll’ the image up and down–just as you will do in looking at the images in this post. Saving the files took 20-30 minutes and the system often crashed. The images were printed in pigment inks on an Ilford Novajet printer onto Hahnemühle Japan ‘rice paper’ by IMT on the Gold Coast. Victoria worked with artist Wim de Vos to design the bespoke handmade acrylic boxes. The design featured the ability for the box to not only serve as a container, but also act as a device to display the scrolls.
The complete set of scrolls, Five Stories from the Gorge, was shown in many venues and awards (see prize list at the end of this post), including Photospace at National Art School, Australian National University, Canberra. Canberra Times arts reviewer Myra McIntyre commented that Cooper’s works are:
Most elegant and fascinating photographic objects are Landscape stories, a series of five Asian-inspired scrolls. Cooper crawls, wanders and flies through the Australian landscape gathering hundreds of objects, patterns, and perspectives that she digitally intertwines, creating a continuum of almost imperceptibly diverse perspectives and a physical sense of vertigo in the viewer.
Review, Canberra Times, May 10, 2002
In 2002 the triptych was acquired during its showing in the Toowoomba Biennial Acquisitive Award selected by Julie Ewington, then Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery. Interestingly the rules of the competition at the time restricted entries to work that had not previously won an art award–as such only the three scrolls The Story of the Hillside, Chaos and Order were entered. When purchased the two other scrolls were orphaned from the set.
So here in this blog, we reunite the Five Stories from the Gorge presented in a form for you to scroll/stroll through … Enjoy.
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By Doug Spowart
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Story of the Cliff
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Story of the Gorge
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Story of the Hillside
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
EX LIBRIS: WHO OWNS THIS BOOK? A Queensland artists’ bookplate project
Zealous book collectors have always prominently placed inside the first few pages of a book their Ex Libris bookplate as a sign of ownership of books that they acquire. Over time these bookplates became a kind of specialised artwork created by artists and designers—not only for their own collected books but also for the libraries of serious book collectors. Bookplates then, are not just the carriers of the name of a book’s [one time] owner, but are also a thing of artistic integrity and beauty. Indeed there exist a large number of book-collecting dilettantes who are more interested in the bookplate and less in the book in which it is fixed.
The origins of the bookplate can be traced back to the 15th century and the artists who made them include Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein. In Australia the most noteworthy bookplate designers include Norman Lindsay, Adrian Feint and G.D. Perrottet. Most significant state and national library collections include bookplate works. The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery has a collection of bookplates as part of The Lionel Lindsay Gallery and Library Collection (Also known as the Bolton Collection) and in 2004 Patrick Corrigan AM gifted to the gallery a collection 318 bookplates, mostly by Australian artists, including John Shirlow, Lionel and Norman Lindsay, P. Neville Barnet, George Perrottet, Lloyd Rees, Pixie O Harris and Brett Whiteley.
“Bookplates Unbound” limited edition set (two views) Photos: Doug Spowart
Into this bookplate space a new and ambitious project is set to provide a contemporary view of the bookplate by Queensland artists. The project, entitled Bookplates Unbound, was inspired by conversations between artists Gael Phillips and Wim de Vos around the role of printmakers in the creation of fine art bookplates. The details of the Bookplates Unbound are as follows (from the frontpiece):
As the project evolved we decided to invite 29 other Queensland artists to collaborate in a project to make a limited edition folio of fine art bookplates mounted on sheets of art paper, unbound, in a clam shell box. The artists were also requested to supply an Artist’s Statement to accompany the prints. Any hand printmaking technique was allowed as well as digital prints. The size was restricted to no more than 90mm by 130mm and the bookplates were to be printed on acid free paper of a weight up to 100gsm. Since we are now in the 21’t century, digital prints were also allowed and, if submitted, these were to be printed using archival inks on acid free paper.
Some of the ‘Bookplates Unbound’ printing plates Photo:Doug Spowart
The Bookplates Unbound set of bookplates is a limited edition production with each artist receiving a copy. The remaining copies will be made available to collectors. The coordination of the project was undertaken by Gael Phillips and Wim de Vos at The Studio West End and was supported by Adele Outteridge.
‘Bookplates Unbound’ wall @ The Studio West End Photo: Doug Spowart
Anne Jolly, of Novel Lines Bookshop, launched the Bookplates Unbound set at a special event at The Studio West End on November 24. Accompanying the launch was an exhibition of artists books from friends of Studio West End that was opened by Helen Cole, Senior Librarian, State Library of Queensland. Wim de Vos also gave the audience a performance of two new tunnel books, one on Venice and the other referencng the Chrysler Building in New York that he has created [SEE the video in this post]. The openings concluded with a musical 6 song set by ‘Rock and Roll’ impresario Wim and fellow band members Neil Anderson and Robin Webb [SEE the video in this post].
Gael Phillips talks @ ‘Bookplates Unbound’ launch Photo: Doug Spowart
Wim and Gael thank Anne Jolly Photo: Doug Spowart
Helen Cole opens the Studio West End artists book show Photo: Doug Spowart
Helen Cole opens the Studio West End artists book show Photo: Doug Spowart
Studio West End artists book show Photo: Doug Spowart
Studio West End artists book show Photo: Doug Spowart
The Band – Wim, Robin Webb and Neil Anderson Photo: Doug Spowart
The contributing artists to the Bookplates Unbound and their respective print media are:
Janette Bailey Line etching / aquatint
Graham Bligh Linocut
Susan E Bowers Sugarlift etching and embossing
Victoria Cooper Digital print
Geraldine Connolly Soft ground etching
Philomena Drake Etching / aquatint
Malcolm Enright Digital print
Barbara Heath Digital print
Tabitha Ford Line etching
Lynne French Line etching and relief roll
Teresa Jordan Digitised linocut
Jeraldene Just Line etching
Sharon Lee Digital print
Chris Ling Line etching
James McDougall Photo etching
Julanne McDougall Photo etching
Fiona Medhurst Line etching and rubber stamp
Karla Meursing Linocut
Anita K Milroy Three hand pierced plates, line etching and embossing
Katharine Nix Lino etching
Adele Outteridge Line etching
Gael Phillips Line and photo etching on three plates
Pip Reid Line aquatint etching
Anneke Silver Engraved lino print
Doug Spowart Digital print
Stephen Spurrier Digital print
Madonna Staunton Wood cut and rubber stamps
Jonathan Tse Screen print
Geoff Thompson Line etching
Wim de Vos Line etching on four plates
Sheryl Whimp Open bite etching
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The Colophon for Bookplates Unbound
This Edition consists of forty copies, of which this is number 11
The bookplates were mounted on acid free cartridge paper and the cover titles embossed in “Times New Roman”. The font used for the Artists’ Statements was “Centaur”, designed by the late Bruce Rogers. The clam shell boxes were made by a craftsman bookbinder, Tony Gibaud at “Craftsmen Bookbinders”, Geebung, Queensland, who also made the blocks for the cover, spine and title page to a design by Gael Phillips and Wim de Vos. The text was printed by Drawing & Drafting Digital, Bowen Hills, Queensland.
The copyright of the bookplate images is retained by the individual artists.
ISBN: 978-0-646-59203-9
Published by Alumni Publishers
© 2012 Brisbane
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Imagine you know: Emerging artists in your community
Imaging you know, the 2012 Toowoomba Biennial Emerging Artists’ Award
Awardees names and works are listed at the end of this post…
September 16 – October 14, 2012
At the Biennial Emerging Artist’s Award
It is hard to measure the vitality of a community’s emerging art practice. For Toowoomba, the Biennial Emerging Artists’ Award provides a survey creates an opportunity to see the artists and their work. And from this year’s exhibition it appears that Toowoomba’s art scene is truly alive and vibrant. Eighteen artists were selected as finalists and at the award opening 11 artists had 20 of their works selected for purchase by the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
TRAG – Emerging Artist Award panorama
The title ‘emerging’ implies the younger artists however this show provides evidence of the ‘older emerging’ artist.
9 of the awarded artists
A detailed catalogue accompanies the show with an essay by Sue Lostroh and artist’s statements and images. From my point of view considering the ubiquitous nature of photography that few photographs were in the show. The selected works will form part of a travelling exhibition that tours the region under the title of Crates on Wheels Travelling Schools Exhibition.
Evan Hollis opens the Awards
Elysha Gould with Award letter
Yseult Taylor with her selected photographs
Ultimately, what is exciting about the award is the diversity of approach to the process, media and visual communication that art is and can be. Significant to this is the role that the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery plays in providing the vehicle by which this work can be given a space for it’s appreciation and enjoyment.
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Doug Spowart
17 September, 2012
Eleven Artists and twenty works selected for the Crates on Wheels Travelling Schools Exhibition in 2013.
(Information supplied by TRAG)
Miles ALLEN 2 works
Marrakech 4
Stacking carrots
Elissa BELLERT 1 work
Red elephant
Elysha GOULD 1 work
Nuclear power plants
Sandra JARRETT 3 works
Objects of worship series 1
Shifting sands #1 and #2
Nicki LAWS 3 works
A rich industrial past
When the mining boom ends
Old buildings are full of stories
Ian McCALLUM 1 work
Beyond seeing
Kelly-Marie McEWAN 3 works
Fairy-ring, Emergence part 1, part 3 and part 5
Tarn McLEAN 2 works
Topography #9
Topography #9—Globe
Chelle McINTYRE 1 work
Rash analogy
Donna MOODIE 1 work
Heartwood
Danish QUAPOOR (The Alter ego of Daniel Qualifchefski) 2 works
i am my hair
hanging by a moment
75 Years: Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery
Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery Panorama
Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, the oldest regional art gallery in Queensland, this month celebrated its 75th year of operation. When we consider that Queensland only recently celebrated its sesquicentennial therefore the gallery is half the age of Queensland itself! Other interesting dates; the Toowoomba region was settled in the 1840s and was proclaimed a city in 1904 The Toowoomba Show Society recently achieved a milestone of 142 years of shows in agriculture and industry and the Empire theatre celebrated its 100th birthday last year. It seems that the Toowoomba region was well and truly fired up as a community and perhaps overdue for an art gallery that was finally established in 1937.
The records show that various Governors of Queensland were associated with TRAG over the years and this association continues to this day with the current Governor Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley opening the 75th exhibition on July 2, 2012. In an impressively researched speech Governor Wensley recounted newspaper reports of the day relating to the gallery’s foundation. The 75th opening was attended by around 100 members of the local community including Mayor Paul Antonio, various councillors and members of the trustees or families of significant donors to the gallery.
Gallery Curator Di Baker with Governor Wensley discussing artworks
The exhibition features 75 individual artworks from the gallery’s collection—one for each of the 75 years. Standing in the middle of the main exhibition area one sees a diverse range of visual material. Paintings of bygone and contemporary eras by some very prominent artists, there are ceramics, fine jewellery (from the gallery’s principle collection media—contemporary wearables), and finally photographs and prints complete the veritable visual cornucopia on show. When I came to testing my recollection of the artwork’s titles and artists I was stumped, as the artwork didactics bore none of that information. This presented some confusion until I became aware the curatorial strategy for the show. The 75 works were selected on the basis of the year and the work’s conceptual connection with significant social, political or historical aspects of that year. The key to the sometimes quirky and idiosyncratic curatorial selection is the exhibition catalogue in which the rationale for the selection is linked with the title, media and the artist’s name.
While at first this seems a little strange my reflection on the concept confirms, for me at least, that the strategy is conceptually stimulating. The usual gallery exhibition is about artists and their art—this show IS about the gallery, its PLACE in the community and TIME, or rather the passage of time—75 years in fact. In this exhibition the gallery then assumes the position of ‘artist’ and were the ‘artwork’ is the curatorial team’s strategy.
Doyen of Toowoomba’s photo scene Graham Burstow with a Max Dupain photograph in the exhibition
Bravo to the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery and the team for bringing to us an exhibition featuring the gems of art from its collection that can tell these multiple stories. One, which is about the assiduous collection by the gallery of art stimulated by and/or created by the regional community. And secondly, this show provides recognition of significant art from outside Toowoomba that has been generously donated by benefactors over the years. Through the gallery display of these artworks the local community is able to connect with these wonderful touchstones of artists’ creative practice.
A visit to TRAG to see this show will require much more engagement than usual walk-through, so do plan for extended visits while the 75th year celebration show is on.
SEE more info Toowoomba Regional Council website
Doug Spowart 8 July 2012
Doug next to his photograph of Ruthven Street selected for the exhibition
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