Prints in Archibald and Wynne Prizes
March 12th, 2009
Just back from Sydney and the Archibald, Yayoi Kusama and Simryn Gill exhibitions. I was amazed to see that a screen print made it through as a finalist in the Archibald Prize.
Mike Chavez archibald finalist screen print
Chavez’s image, Portrait of a muthf***a (pictured), is a screen print using a halftone screen and acrylic paint so all you sreen printers should perhaps set your sights a little bit higher when making submissions!
Also of interest was a piece in the Wynne Prize by Pei Pei He titled City Life which is designated as “emulsion paint and ink on canvas”. To this viewer it appears as though the artist has painted the canvas and overprinted it with an inkjet printer.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Well worth a visit are;
SimRyn Gill: Gathering
20 November 2008 - 22 March 2009
This solo exhibition presents the work of leading Sydney-based Malaysian artist, Simryn Gill. It reveals the artist’s pursuit of meaning through materials, forms and ways of working and is focused around new works from the past five years including photography, objects, collections, books and text pieces.
Gill’s practice considers how we might experience place and the intersection of personal and collective histories and geographies. For her work May 2006 the artist took more than 800 photographs over a month of walks around her neighbourhood, using a film stock that had recently been discontinued and was nearing its expiry date. The work records the passing of this material as well as Gill’s deepening connection to her locality.
If you get a chance to see this exhibition make sure you see the Time Life books
yayoi-kusama at the MCA Sydney
YAYOI KUSAMA: MIRRORED YEARS
24 February - 8 June 2009
Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years demonstrates the enduring force of Yayoi Kusama. Renowned early installations such as Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (1965) along with recent immersive environments including Fireflies on the Water (2000) and Clouds (2008) provide insight into the creative energy of this extraordinary artist and her lifelong preoccupation with the perceptual, visual and physical worlds.
Working across different media and forms that include painting, collage, sculpture, installation and film, as well as performance and its documentation, Kusama creates works that reveal a fixation with repetition, pattern and accumulation. Describing herself as an “obsessive artist”, her work is intensely sensual, infused with
autobiographical, psychological and sexual content.
These may not be print artists but are exciting contemporary artists who are bound to get your creative juices flowing
