Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper document Personal Histories at UNSW

Fellow Australian book artists

Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper

Image: Doug Spowart + Victoria Cooper wotwedid blogsite

have posted a wonderful reference to their experience of 

the Personal Histories Opening Night Event at UNSW Canberra on their wotwedid blog site.

The post includes a written overview of their thoughts on the exhibition, documentary photographs including images of participating artists Judy Bourke and Tracie Toohey, also links to video footage of a walkthrough of some of the exhibition -

including a guest appearance by Canberra based artist
 Caren Florance and opening speeches from Selena Griffith, Lisa Morisset (UNSW Library) and Robyn Foster.

This is a marvellous resource for any one who could not physically get to visit the exhibitions and I highly recommend following the link to have a look at this post and to explore the wealth of information in other posts.

I can't thank Doug and Victoria enough for making the journey to the Canberra opening and for generously creating and sharing this documentary resource with all of us.

Doug Spowart was 2014 Siganto Foundation Research Fellow at the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland.

Dr Victoria Cooper is 2015 Siganto Foundation Research Fellow at the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland. 

(footnote re footage: I was a little disturbed to see one lovely person's blatant disregard for gallery etiquette, but I can assure everyone {especially Janet Braun-Reinitz - whose artwork was in imminent peril}, no artworks were harmed during the making of this footage)

Installation Week & Opening Night - Redland Art Gallery Cleveland

 100 Books: A Personal Histories International Artists' Book Exhibition

has opened to a very enthusiastic audience at 

Redland Art Gallery Cleveland (Queensland, Australia).

Congratulations to all the contributing artists involved.

It was an honour and a pleasure to have Jan Davis officially, and very eloquently, 

open the exhibition with Redland Art Gallery Director Stephanie Lindquist (in the blue dress below) acting as MC.

 

Exhibiting artist's books since the late 1980's,  

Jan Davis has undertaken duties as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University, is Vice President of the Print Council of Australia and is one of two Siganto Foundation Fellows currently based at the Australian Library of Art ( State Library of Queensland).  As part of her fellowship, Jan has chosen to research historical diaries and farm records from the John Oxley collection which she will transfigure into artists' books. 

The Redland Art Gallery exhibition holds 110 works in total 

with contributing artists from 16 countries.

100 works form the main body of the exhibition along with 10 works in an adjunct display which focuses on the centenary of WWI from a perspective of personal/family connections.

As the exhibition coincides with school holidays here, there is a dedicated area for children to create and display book art, with books referencing childhood in close proximity (all safely under perspex covers - of course).  We already have some wonderful examples after an enthusiastic response from the young people in attendance last night.

There is a reading table area where books are able to be read and touched.

I will be hosting a floor talk at the gallery at 11.30am Sunday 29 March 2015. 

Helen Malone will host a floor talk focusing on the WWI artworks at 11.30am Friday 24 April 2015.

Workshops are planned for this afternoon as well.  For details contact the gallery directly.

There are also artists' groups who have organised guided, white gloves tours throughout the run of the exhibition after having had tours of the first Personal Histories exhibition at Redland Museum in October 2014.

Many thanks to the Redland Art Gallery staff for their tireless efforts and skill in making exhibitions like this a reality.

Exhibition runs through until Sunday 10 May.

Feature Artist: KAREN HARDY

KAREN HARDY

is a visual artist currently living in San Antonio, Texas.

She works primarily with innovative hand paper making techniques in a variety of forms, including artist books, sculpture and installation.  Her practice is centered on an experimental approach to materials, influenced by her background in the natural sciences.

A graduate of the book arts & printmaking MFA program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Karen's work is part of prominent national collections and is widely exhibited both nationally and internationally.  Her artists books have recently received awards in exhibitions at the Northern Arizona University Art Museum and the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library.

Karen has been awarded a Denbo Fellowship by Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and a College Book Art Association Project Assistance grant.  She has also recently been artist-in-residence at the Picante Paper and Book Arts Studio at the Southwest School of Art.

Curiosity about materials is my primary motivation as an artist. My creative process involves intuitive experimentation with the expressive properties of materials and the associations that they carry. My artist books, sculpture, and two-dimensional work often begin with paper that I make by hand, and their meaning is inseparable from their physical materials.  I am fascinated by biological forms and systems. Consciously or not, my selection and manipulation of materials often yields work that is vaguely evocative of living organisms and bodily processes. I am especially drawn to paper pulp made from overbeaten abaca and flax for its organic, corporeal effect. This material layers and interacts with light in compelling ways, capable of being beautifully luminous and uncomfortably grotesque at once. Its translucent, membrane-like quality suggests a blurred boundary between interior and exterior, private and public, protected and vulnerable. Much of my work explores this liminal state, inviting the viewer into a realm of duality and ambiguity.

Two of Karen's works have been part of the Personal Histories project:

SEPARATE

focuses on the various roles we fill throughout our lives as both caregiver and dependant.  My intent is to highlight the conflict between the instinct to nurture and the desire to be unencumbered, the push and pull between dependence and independence, and our vacillation between vulnerability and strength.  In this book, the paper itself becomes a vehicle for exploring the variety of emotion encompassed in these relationships.  

The handmade flax pages contain egg-shaped openings partially filled with delicate abaca membrane, echoing the longing present in the text.

MIS-DIRECT-ION RE-DIRECT-IVE

is a journey through progressive stages from passivity to action.  The text and imagery describe a struggle to overcome a state of apathy and indecision caused by fear and regret.  Because the handmade abaca paper is translucent, as many as three or four sheets can be visible simultaneously when layered, creating an evolving visual narrative that comes in and out of focus much as mental clarity may wax and wane.  

The book is composed of twelve double-sided 4" x 11" (10cm x 28cm) prints, bound with a modified long stitch in a variable edition of five.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST KAREN HARDY

Feature Artist - JEN CONDE

JEN CONDE

is an artist and graphic designer living on a pacific coastal waterway south of Brisbane, Australia.

She exhibits prints, paintings and artists books in her solo and group exhibitions held across Australia and internationally.  She has won various awards, including 'Best of Show', Rotary Art Spectacular 2008, 'Best Overall', Aveo Art Show 2010 and has work in the National Gallery of Australia print collection.  

Jen has illustrated a number of books for local authors and is an active member of local artists and writers groups.

She holds a Diploma of Fine Arts from the Brisbane Institute of Art and a Diploma of Visual Communications from the Queensland College of Art.  

Jen's  contribution to the Personal Histories exhibition  is a mixed media and calligraphy artists book made on Hahnemühle 250gsm paper entitled "The Netmaker":

'The book is about the poem "The Netmaker" written by early Brisbane poet, teacher and opera critic 'Val Vallis' (1916-2008). 

Val Vallis gave permission to use his poem which is about his father, a fishing net maker who worked as a wharf lumper and fisherman.  "The Netmaker" is the poet's lyric ode to the memories of his father mending and making his nets.  Val died a few years ago and this exhibition is a good opportunity to remember him and his poetry but also because the poem is about his own father and the nets he made.'

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST:  JEN CONDE

Feature Artist: DOROTHEA FLEISS

DOROTHEA FLEISS

is an artist and educator from Stuttgart, Germany.

Dorothea has had more than 60 personal exhibitions and been part of more than 180 group exhibitions since 1996, when she began her arts journey at The Art Institute, Filderstadt/Stuttgart.  She has also studied at  IB University - Stuttgart (Creative Pedagogy and Art Therapy B.Sc.), L'cole Europeenne de Psychotherapie Analytique - Strasbourg, France (Psychotherapy), Societa Italiana di Biosistemica - Bologna, Italy (Biosystemic Psychotherapy), HKT University Nurtingen Germany (Art Therapy M.A.) and Art University Bucharest (Doctoral Candidate).

She actively produces book arts, installations, painting, ceramics and films and has represented Germany at arts events and as an artist in residence in the United States, Malaysia, Poland, Japan, Slovakia, Greece, South Korea, Hungary, Jordan, Austria and Romania.  Dorothea has organised &/or taken part in many international Biennales as well as teaching fine arts in China, Ecuador, Germany, Romania, the United States and Inner Mongolia.

Dorothea's works are held in many private and public collections in South America, North America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.  She is a member of the International Association of Arts, UNESCO, Paris, France - Wurttembergischer Kunstverein (Artists Ass.) Stuttgart, Germany - d.f.e.w.a. (Artists Ass.) Stuttgart and the European-Liaison "Transcultural Exchange" Boston, USA.

In 2014 Dorothea curated the European International Book Arts Biennale in Moscow and is organising the 2015 Biennale in Bucharest (entries are due by April 15 2015, please visit the link for more information).

To: Te: Ma. SH Diary 2012-2014

is the title of Dorothea's work in the Personal Histories exhibition.

"Every artist creates his own journal/diary, that transposes his physical state of mind and embodies a part of their soul, constantly influenced by specific moments in life".

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - DOROTHEA FLEISS

Feature Artist - Julie Macbean

Feature Artist: Julie Macbean

Julie Macbean is a painter-printmaker living in Darlington, UK.  Graduating with an MA in Fine Art from Teeside University in 2012, she is inspired by nostalgia and historical events; looking for the undesirable and the overlooked.

Julie's submission for the Personal Histories Exhibition 'Absent Voices' is based around Marianne Hirsh's 'Postmemory' and alludes to the inherited memories passed down from the generation before, bringing absent voices to life (especially pertinent at this time of year when we remember absent friends).

The images and intriguing snippets were found during a house clearance for a family member; and the book was put together by talking to family members and through internet research.

'Absent Voices' is a beautifully bound linen box of ephemera; containing hand printed and facsimile photographs on both loose and bound pages. Scrolls and facsimile vintage postcards housed in nooks and pockets make this a very interactive and interesting addition to the Personal Histories exhibition. 

'Postmemory is not the recalling of a person's memory; it describes the relationship that the "generation after" bears to the personal collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before.

To be dominated by narratives that preceded one's birth or one's consciousness, is to grow up with overwhelming inherited memories, remembering only by means of stories and images.

These events happened in the past, but heir effects continue into the present."

Marianne Hirsch

www.postmemory.net

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - JULIE MACBEAN