The following artist statement is of fellow printmaking artist Donna Foley exhibiting in XXX+WHY at Pinnacles Art Gallery, Townsville, Australia. Her work is not too removed from my objective of working with a site that is scarred from commercialization with disregard to the use and functionality of the site once productivity has ceased.
CTRL x CTRL v
The image and symbol of x are explored in two series of works in this exhibition. Though quite dissimilar in appearance and treatment of traditional and contemporary print-media, both explore various levels of communicative action through materials and process.
On a superficial level "Ctrl x Ctrl v" (Cut and paste) explicitly underscores the social protest ethic as it relates to the logging of old growth forests in Tasmania. The implicit theme explored is unexpected complicity, the level of one's own involvement expressed through the use of vinyl as opposed to paper, and through one's own actions, for example, as a tourist, home decorator, printmaker and user of technologies and even as gardener. Many of us are often quick to adopt the high moral ground in protest against numerous cultural and environmental practices; however, we fail to acknowledge our own part in such practices. The production (and use) of paper sustains forestry practice. As a printmaker, paper is intrinsic to practice, particularly in traditional approaches to making prints.
X FACTOR SERIES
The second series," The X Factor", explicitly represents communicative action through gesture. Implicitly, the works are informed by the theories of the Humanist/Scientist/ Mathematician /Philosopher, Douglas Hoffstadter (GEB (1945), I am a strange loop (2007)). In addition to other forms of interaction, these works explore his ideas, for example, of recursion and figure-ground (negative/positive).
Happy Printmaking,
Warmly,
Jo Lankester
© Jo Lankester 2010
P.S. Discover how to turn your passion of printmaking into a sustainable business go to www.howtogetstartedinprintmaking.com
P.P.S. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
P.P.P.S Contact me directly at jo.lankester@gmail.com to purchase my recent print pictured in this blog which is currently on display in XXX+WHY, Jo Lankester, +X, 2010, Collagraph, 80 x 60 $200.00 AU
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