Title: Mother Site II: for Eleanor, (with selfies) Medium: Digital signage and silkscreen prints on recycled perspex sheets with IKEA shelves. Year: 2023-24
My work Mother site II: for Eleanor,(with selfies),2023-24 was selected for the Blue Mountains Portraits 2024 exhibition earlier this year at The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. I am thankful for the selection and the wonderful installation of this quirky work. Both were indeed a gift to the process of my art practice and this work. Many thanks to the talented Rilka Oakley, a brave exhibition manager and the Curator Hayley Poynton. Also thank you to the whole gallery team for selecting a proposal for this unfinished work… that evolved several times over the previous 6 weeks. I am extremely thankful that you perceived and trusted my vision.
Original Text below:
This hybrid printmaking work traces family stories and collective social history within the layers of the work. It is the story (portrait) of Linda Swinfields’ long-deceased ancestor Eleanor Meredith.
Mother Site II is a feminist story attempting to underline women’s collective history in colonial Australia. The selected images from Eleanors’ life submerge; and re-emerge themselves inviting what is hidden to be revealed again just as history does in revision.
Title: Mother Site II: for Eleanor, (with selfies) detail Medium: Digital signage and silkscreen prints on recycled perspex sheets with IKEA shelves. Year: 2023-24
Swinfield sees herself as akin to a history novelist attempting to interrogate and re-reveal history through constructed stories. In this work, Swinfield acknowledges the hidden layers that get submerged and question our collective histories using images of her feisty ancestor Eleanor, the youngest daughter of a second fleet convict and a first fleet sea steward. The Meredith family history is well documented as supposed “Australian Royalty”.
Eleanor was married very young and absconded, reinvented herself eventually remarrying and being buried in Ipswich Queensland after giving birth to sixteen children by two fathers. Swinfield is descended from the first marriage to John Burrows.
In this work, Swinfield has used her own “selfie” images as a symbol of connection to Eleanors’ DNA. She has also incorporated textured layers of three 19th century sites including early photographs of the family land grant, the home of Eleanor and her second husband Frederick Ferrier at Rutherford NSW and traces of the layers of Woodford Academy.
The silkscreen images inserted are of Eleanor Meredith as a young woman as well as in her declining years surrounded by her children and grandchildren at Ipswich QLD. Also included are images of her childhood home near Salt Pan Creek the second family land grant (now Punchbowl).
During the artists’ residency at Woodford Academy in 2023 (see previous post). Swinfield couldn’t avoid comparing her ancestors’ story with the Buss family who ran the roadside inn on this site in the early 19th Century. Mrs Buss also married to an ex-convict although she stayed at the Inn to run the business. Whilst making Mother Site II Swinfield ran out of perspex and begun printing over Mother Site 1 so traces of the historic layers at Woodford Academy remain in the current work.
Mother Site: for Eleanor (with selfies), 2023 to 24 – was begun at the end of the Woodford AiR and during workshops with local high school students for the “Non-Selfie- Selfie 2023” workshops. Swinfield challenged herself to take “selfies’ over two half-exposed rolls of film with an aim and shoot camera.
Between February and April 2023 I was gifted time to be Artist in Residence at Woodford Academy. Many thanks to Beata Geyer ( Art Curator) for selecting me for this period. Also as mentioned previously support whilst applying for funding for this project.
Woodford Academy is the oldest complex of colonial buildings in the Blue Mountains and is of state heritage significance. There are multiple eras of historic significance at this site. My focus was on historic narratives within the collections at this site regarding stories of motherhood.
“Mother Site” as a concept evolved whilst I was in residence using a broader range of forms as symbols to depict notions of mother at this site. However my initial goal of using multiple expose film as a form of layering was carried out. This extended period of time enabled me to further research this aspect of my art making process using a variety of traditional analogue film cameras.
Many thanks to Katrina Noorbergen and the Trust Committee for this period of support. It was gold.
Mother Site: Wallpaper and Window 2023.
Like many of the AiR programs I have undergone in my past work this one was also research based. However due to the very nature of the extraordinary histories at the Woodford Academy Site I decided to approach the work in a different way.
In the past I have been investigating stories of my own family and history attached to residency. Here the stories weren’t my own so I was enabled to look at broader concepts of symbolism of motherhood, familial forms and archetypes. Within this body of work these forms became capsules or vessels for site specific memory.
I would particularly like to thank Kathleen Zarnardo for assisting me with my vision and being an invisible model.
Also I need to thank a “cast of many” amazing volunteers at Woodford Academy that supported and gave me advice during my working research. Most particularly Eniko Hildas who assisted me with the final install of my work for the open day. The synergy also of her amazing display of historic objects supporting my residency was in itself spooky.
A big thanks to David Hawley also for assisting me with the final video of student works of ” Selfie/ Non Selfie” born out of the funded youth arts workshops and assistance with the install of technology at the Academy Open Day.
And finally the incredibly patient and knowledgeable Kate O’Neill and Linsi Braith whose historic information about the women’s stories at this site was extraordinary. I cant thank you all enough for your patience, the gift of time and the information that you have given me.
On the back of my curatorial project WAY OUT: with Print in 2022. I was invited by Articulate Project Space in Sydney to curate or move the original group of artists across to fill a gap in their program in February 2023.
This all happened very quickly. Two artists were unable to participate in this exhibition and two new and very appropriate artists were found.
Artists were: Anthea Boesenberg, Angela Hayson, Therese Kenyon, Anna Russell, Gary Shinfield, Linda Swinfield, Patricia Wilson- Adams, Freedom Wilson
“Printmaking has long since emancipated itself from the motivation upon which its development was initially based: the simple desire to reproduce visual material. Between tradition and experiment, it has acquired its own claim to originality, thus launching a far more fundamental debate on the multiplication potential of the print and overturning the one-sided relationship between original and reproduction.”
Annemarie Bucher, “WHY MAKE PRINTS, Printmaking isn Switzerland since 1960: Artists, Printers, Publishers’ Page 10, Pro Helvetica, 1998
Convergent: the hybrid print is stretching the parameters of printmaking. Within this exhibition the artists investigate differing notions of hybridity within the printmaking spectrum. Encompassing surface investigations and borrowing print media from a variety of tangents. It is the third hybrid printmaking exhibition incarnation that the core of this group has exhibited in since 2020.
Akin to its title we are moving toward a common point or a way of thinking and working. Convergent (kənˈvɜːdʒənt ) is an adjective. 1. (of two or more lines, paths, etc) moving towards or meeting at some common point 2. (of forces, ideas, etc) tending towards the same result; merging 3. mathematics(of an infinite series) having a finite limit.
The artists selected for Convergent were born out of the previous two and fluidly this group has evolved just as our studio practices have. All artists here are multi-disciplinary; question and expand how we see print media within the contemporary art realm. The work selected here by no means defining the complete breadth of the practice, it is merely a sprinkle. At the outset of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020 three of the selected artists were included in Let all the birds fly: the hybrid print curated by Therese Kenyon and Patricia Wilson- Adams exhibited at Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG). The MRAG exhibition went into physical suspension shortly after its opening and had the opportunity to progress as an online exhibit. The second Covid lockdown provided an opportunity to develop for the second and more recent exhibition in Kandos with the Cementa Gallery WayOut Art Space. With a different group of print artists invited to take part, many with regional connections and works that reflected the new location. WayOut: with Print became an offshoot of the MRAG Exhibition and it drew from the essence of the first exhibition becoming more organically expanded to include regional and environmental concerns. This third exhibition has evolved again. Selected because of their multi-disciplinary studio practices, with printmaking as well as other media, each artist in this exhibition has a solid background within the tradition of editioning prints and has the ability to work within the canon of those traditions.
What is important within Convergent is that the artists expand, stretch and disrupt how we traditionally see printmaking, experimenting and questioning those studio-based traditions. The work here isn’t concerned with tradition; instead the artists expand our preconceived perceptions of the contemporary printmaking spectrum. The “Convergent: the Hybrid Print” artists are part of a growing evolution of print based media globally and within Australia who extend the parameters of traditional handmade print media.
WAYOUT: with Print was a curatorial project that stretched over many months during 2022 and the first project of this scale for over ten years.
Below are the wonderful notes of Steven Cavanagh who opened the exhibition on behalf of Arts Out West. Thank you for the wonderful words at the opening event in October.
First of all I would like to thank all the artists for allowing me to include their work.
Anthea Boesenberg, Jan Melville, Therese Kenyon, Ben Rak, Patricia Wilson -Adams, Linda Swinfield, Freedom Wilson and Sandra Winkworth
Also I would like to acknowledge that the gift for this curatorial project. Many thanks to the Cementa Gallery committee for the exhibition time slot, support and the gallery crew of WAYOUT Art Space. Particularly Leanne Wicks, Gabrielle Bates and GusArmstrong for all their advice, time and patience.
And a BIG final thanks to Ben Rak from Throwdown Press for his collaboration and patience whilst publishing our limited edition catalogue. Patricia Wilson- Adams for her informative catalogue essay. Additionally I would like to thank the assistant proof readers of the catalogue Solange Kershaw, Marie Fitzpatrick and Therese Kenyon.
STEVEN CAVAGNAH: opening event notes, Saturday October 29th 2022.
I’d like to pay my respects to the Wiradjuri people on whose land we meet here today for this wonderful event and celebration.
How beautiful to see so many here on what can only be described as a perfect day.
WAYOUT with print has been so beautifully and sensitively curated by Linda Swinfield with a playful flair and grace. The exhibition is comprised of Anthea Boesenberg, Therese Kenyon, Jan Melville, Ben Rak, Linda Swinfield, Freedom Wilson, Patricia Wilson-Adams and Sandra Winkworth.
One of the first things to strike me is the exploratory notion of print that has been explored and embraced in this show. This is right up my alley as a curator and artist. The exciting notion that we might push at the boundaries of materiality and thinking when exploring a medium and viewpoint can be an act of defiance and revolution. It’s our job as artists to speak new languages and explore new ways of seeing.
The 15th century Gutenberg Press changed the world. It’s hard to imagine a world before printing. An action made through the latest technology onto a single 2D surface of paper. Perhaps this is where the information super-highway truly began. Multiple copies of books becoming widely accessible bringing new information and multiple viewpoints… Fast forward to 2022.
Patricia Wilson -Adams, Poem XXV: and I said to the pebbles, 2022, Plaster prints mounted on metal ant caps.
Artists are here to disturb the peace as James Baldwin said (and more recently Madonna).
I am very familiar with the work of some of the artists here and new to others. WayOut: with Print isn’t concerned with tradition, instead the artists expand our preconceived perceptions of the contemporary printmaking spectrum. These artists are part of a growing evolution of print-based media globally and within Australia who extend the parameters of traditional handmade print media.
Each artist has created work that does just that… multi-disciplinary, playful, dangerous and disruptive. and what a thrill to see. WayOut: with Print is an offshoot of a Maitland Regional Art Gallery Exhibition and draws from the essence of the first exhibition it is more organically expanded to include regional and environmental concerns. A selection of timely works that speak to the zeitgeist of social and political discourse, these works are NOW, ephemeral in their meanderings of consideration and questions. Full of the promise of a future enlightenment that we so earnestly crave as artists.
So how do we explore ourselves, our time and our spaces through printmaking?
Therese Kenyon has done this with digital and reworked industrial surfaces of Cockatoo Island, studio interior details, and remnants of water architecture.
Linda Swinfield’s repetitive prints on sheet metal uses multiple exposed film images of Wallerawang Power Station. These reference local history and a dying industry.
Anthea Boesenberg’ rust print speaks to the patina of manufactured surfaces left within industrial sites. The detritus of industry, technology and progress. Therese, Linda and Anthea connect us with the industrial revolution… visible and held up to examine as the forerunner and launching pad of global warming and the Anthropocene. Industries once seen as serving us are now in flux and much like the dinosaur they are headed for extinction.
Installation view: Anthea Boesenberg, HOME 2, 2021, trace monotype, collage, acrylic medium and Karangahake, 2021 Rust print, woodcut, stained paper mounted on paper using the chinese method. toward Therese Kenyon install- Golden River, Cordoba, 2022,Collage of digital prints on Somerset velvet paper with screenprint, pastel and watercolour. And Studio Blues 1 and 2, 2022, Digital prints.
Ben Rak’s printmaking process is performative. The work selected is a physical layering, breaking silkscreen traditions in their construction and his video Skins is an extension of this printmaking process. Rak is using the print as a medium for examining changing identities and their agency. The very act of passing as a jumping off point for considering our own selves as authentic beings.
Sandra Winkworth aka SWINKIE, invites us to physically interact with her work, to experience its materiality. Using handmade prints, she cuts up fragments of print and reassigns commercial print detritus, often found in our everyday lives she is inviting us to ponder printmaking’s invisibility. Re-use, re-imagine and re-frame are central considerations within her art practice.
Jan Melville and Freedom Wilson whose “Plant, Pagoda and Carbon’ examines environmental concerns connected with the World heritage area Gardens of Stone in the Capertee landscape. Jan’s work contains print specimens, like 19th century collectible jars sampling deceased and endangered species. Her work references the recent black summer fires. Freedom’s work investigating plant communities and bush habitats is so clearly a discussion about our understanding of what constitutes a sentient life. The evolution and threats to the many species of flora that we live in and around every day.
Patricia Wilson-Adams looks for poetic and metaphoric connections with landscape, literature and the environment. She combines word, image and sculpture. Using formal elements of colour and composition Patricia presents us with what might be considered very different mediums as a sensitive and exploratory holistic work.
WAYOUT Space is an ideal venue for us to consider and reassess how we see printmaking and consider the parameters of contemporary art.
I am heartened and emotionally encouraged by this wonderful group of artists. We need you in this moment. Thank you for your courage and vision. So, it’s with great joy and a huge congratulations to all the artists that I declare the phenomenal show that is WAYOUT with print – open.
Thank you!
Freedom Wilson, Plant Pagoda and Carbon, May 2021 – ongoing, Silkscreen and hand cut paper print on Stonehenge and Hahnemuhle papers.
Installation view, Sandra Winkworth, non-stop matterings, centre of the gallery, hand printed and commercially printed matter and other found materials and back wall with Therese Kenyon and Anthea Boesenberg.
In 2022 and into 2023 I was blessed with financial support by The Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust Grant to support my art research at Woodford Academy between February and April 2023.
A big shout out of thanks to the NSW National Trust for the letter of offer, Beata Geyer – Art Curator at Woodford Academy for awarding me the residency.
Also thank you to the full Grant Committee and Katrina Noorbergen for gifting me with this award.
Image of the artist in the garden at Woodford Academy by Dee Wilson 2021.
I will be Artist in Residence at Woodford Academy in 2023 investigating multiple notions of motherhood at the historic Woodford Academy site.
This research will centre on the “mother” in relation to the academy, a woman’s role here, parental separation from a familial stand point utilising the academy archive, historic objects within the site.
A very overdue thank you to Blue Mountains Creative Arts Centre and the judges for awarding my work with a Highly Commended Prize in 2021 at The Blue Mountains Printmaking Prize.
This unique state print and its related series were a response to the black summer bush fires.
This Triptych was constructed specifically for entry into this award.
Talking with the Trees- Triptych, 2021, Photo Lithography and Solar Polymer Print on Magnani Papers. 30.3 x 45cm, Unique State Print.
Some wonderful news arrived after this years Print Day in May Event… it was my fourth year to participate in this fabulous international printmaking event .
I am so pleased to be one of only two winners in Australia to be gifted a Print Day in May Prize. Many thanks to Neil Wallace Printmaking supplies who awarded us with this Prize. It is both a surprise and wonderful to be sent our paper pack. This arrived at a perfect time.
It is interesting to say we have recently been experimenting with cardboard as a Matrix to print from Tetra Paks and Milk Cartons. This is what caught the eye of the staff at the art store and gave us the prize. So these prints are quite tiny and some are my sons school milk cartons and our kitchen discards are now being rescued. an environmentally good way to make prints!!
They do produce a clean line but long editions aren’t going to happen.
Below are a few other beautiful memories from the Print day in May event which was a lot of fun as always. I invited my students from over the previous year to print for free! I also invited a neighbour.
Everyone bought food for lunch and it was a real treat!
A very overdue shout out of thanks to Artist Anne-Maree Hunter from Psyclonic studiosfor travelling to our studio to teach us all how to make artists books in March 2021.
We cut up old prints, sewed and folded paper to make some simple and beautiful book structures. It was a highly productive and engaging weekend workshop with a small but dedicated audience.
About the artist.:
Anne-Maree Hunter is an Australian Artist, specialising in Lithography, Intaglio, Artists’ Books and Objects. Hunters work is thought provoking, eclectic, eccentric and a little unconventional.
Hunters career as a professional artist spans 27 years and began with her first solo exhibition 1993 and she has held over13 since then. As an undergraduate, Anne- Maree became interested in Artists’ Books & Objects and later completed a Ph.D. titled “Constructing the Eclectic Bibliothèque” in 2007 about Artists’ Books, Altered Book in all shapes and sizes and how they are shown.
Anne-Maree Hunter has lectured in all Printmaking mediums including Photo-mechanical, Print-as-Object and Foundations of Creative Arts including Creative Inquiry 3D, Paper as Form and Textiles and Fibres, and Creative industries: Visual Arts & Performance at The University of Newcastle, Australia.
Over two days (May 15th and 16th) I was blessed to develop and present a new printmaking workshop that was born out of a discussion with Katrina Noorbergen after the development of their new roof top garden at The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.
This experiential printmaking workshop was a true collaboration with the Cultural Centre. I will keep it brief and post a few pictorial highlights for the weekend.
A beautiful handmade one page book.
We printed the textures found in our landscape environment and used recycled collage to express the natural world.
This focussed and fun workshop centred on traditional monotype printmaking techniques and the tutor assisted the local art makers to make exciting, experimental and contemporary prints. We were inspired by our own gardens and our local landscape. We used upcycled materials, stencilling and traditional painterly applications through a variety of printmaking techniques.
Our participants made fabulous prints to take home that can be framed or recycled into cards or other stationary. This printmaking course included beginners and intermediate print enthusiasts.
Linda Swinfield - Contemporary Artist 