Category: Studio Practice
Processing the Spring/Summer 2012 set
On the 20th of January 2013 Adam and I traveled to Tony and Steven’s farm to collect the Shrouds we had left at the end of Spring late October 2012. They had therefore been there for about 3 months, longer than I usually leave them. This was due to my arrangement for Michal to film their collection and processing today after she returned from the summer break, but unfortunately she could not make it.
The bodies were looking beautifully dried out so collection of the mammal canvases was no problem as the maggots during the wet decomposition phase had gone and beetle infestation during the dry decomposition phase had begun. The bandicoot looked particularly interesting and the cockatoo stunning as expected. This was my first use of the trampoline and the result was amazing as water had pooled on the surface absorbing a rich brown pigment I assume from the tree bark but maybe the bodies contributed. We chatted to Tony afterwards and he discussed the recent fires and their lucky escape.
At home I boiled up more eucalyptus leaves I had collected from the site tree using gas to heat the old copper. After purifying the hare for just a short while I left the possum over night and it achieved a rich brown tinge. I left the cockatoo/bandicoot as it was, just hanging it out to air. As it has not been creased like the others from the dye pot and is larger due to the trampoline space, I am not going to stretch it on a frame, but simply nail it to the wall.
My last shroud will be a large black crow and a tiny coloured finch which I have arranged Michal to film. Although Adam took the bed bases home from the site, we left the trampoline ready for the crow and finch.
Year of the Bird exhibition
Birds have featured throughout the shroud project creating ghostly images.
The exhibition is at Maitland Regional Gallery
http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=122138
Sewing or adding ochres changes the representation.
This is a delicate negotiation, adding one element may detract from the indexical power of the bodily stain.
Studio Process
Laden with materia prima in the form of sacred ochres from Around Australia and a funerary cloth holding the bodily pigments of a chough and starling, I bring them into dialogue through painting process.
New Work
I have recently worked into three spring shrouds from 2011. Collecting wattle flowers and pounding them into soaked wattle gum I smear the ground of the magpie stain. Mixing wattle gum with charcoal pieces and delek (the white ochre I collected in Arnhem Land) I work into the stain recreating the post decomposition feathers long since blown away. Lastly I add yellow garlba to the areas once littered by leaves. The lamb shrouds only have the addition of delek. In Resurrection I add the pre-decomposition wool and a little silk stich on the hooves. To Sacred field I add the post decomposition wool to the stain which spreads out into the ground merging with and responding to stains left by other debris at the site.
Filming the Spring Shroud Set
Today Michal Glikson, a fellow postgraduate painter at the ANU, accompanied Adam, Tepi and I on our return to Steven and Tony’s farm to instal a spring shroud set. Michal has generously offered to film the shroud process which in this case features a cockatoo found in Dickson by Nigel my theory supervisor, a bandicoot found by my brother in Vincentia, a lizard found by Tepi and her friends in Hackett, a possum I found in Ainslie and a hare I found in Watson. Upon arriving we caught up with Tony, who had sad news about their dog blondie, she had died, they think due to eating rat poison. Tepi was upset as she loved visiting her, but it had been a long time since we had been to the farm. During the setting up under the same eucalyptus tree, which now has finches living in it, we even had a picnic. There was a lot of sheep and cow dung around and the grass appeared full of sheep wool. The spring lambs were big rather than newborn by this time and we found a few dried out casualties, but it had been a better season than last spring when I had produced all the lamb shrouds.
Blake Prize
I am very excited about becoming a finalist in the Blake Prize for religious art.
I entered this lamb shroud I had worked into with sacred delek from Arnhem Land and silk stitching.
I called the work lamb of God (Monaro Country)
My 50 word statement to explain the religious significance of Lamb of God 2012:
In the bible the Lamb of God is sacrificed to remove the sins of the world.
This work is a decomposition print made by a lamb that died in spring 2011 amidst new life in the Monaro sheep-farming district. Sacred white ochre indicates the lamb’s role as spiritual testament. A positive audience response.
Negative Feedback
Bringing the first stage of my painting process into contact with Canberra’s human animals has caused a little controversy.
Here is the link.
winter shroud 2012
Adam helped me set up a large canvas under the studio eucalyptus tree on which I placed 6 mice a currawong and kookaburra. I added fresh eucalyptus leaves and some old ones and bark to encourage leeching of plant dye in evocative forms. At the last minute I added the dried magpie from the autumn shroud to encourage a clean patch of canvas in the shape of a bird. the wings of the fresh currawong and kookaburra were frozen and unstretchable and Adam suggested in future I should make an armature on which to stretch out the wings prior to freezing the body. This idea prompted by aesthetics enters a taxidermy style approach where a corpse is moved into a more live-evoking pose. I find myself uncomfortable with this as artifice enters the otherwise natural death-position of each body. Although it is equivalent to a morticians beautification of a corpse for viewing by loved ones and obviously the penetrations of wire cannot cause pain, it is a psychological discomfort I feel.
oil paintings
I decided to remind myself what it was like to paint in oils again prompted by the colourful feathers of a rainbow lorikeet. I had 3 sets of stretched canvas dyed in Gunbalanya and 3 dried small birds. So I began by sewing them on one canvas and painting a reversed image of the birds in oil on the other. The 3 small diptych’s look as though I have printed the birds due to the reversal enabled by using a projected image as well as the actual body.
They make evocative comparative studies to the shroud image offering different orders of representation to consider.
Laomedia 