The book..the object...the archive

(fig.i)

The latest contribution to my State Library of Victoria creative fellowship is a series of small hand-held bound books that feature the photographic etchings of unnamed figures from the photographic archive of the library. Titled 'foto metafisica' the intention has always been to create a series of book-objects that withhold the same intrigue and unknown' aboutness' as the images themselves. I guess essentially maintaining the same ambiguity yet retaining the sense of an object and an image from the past that once contained meaning and a sense of narrative. 

                                                                            (fig.ii)

                                           

                                                                      (fig.iii)

Material Opening:NERAMG

The joint exhibition of works by the Black Gully Print Group based at Armidale and myself opened on Friday night at the New England Regional Art Museum and Gallery. The Armidale arts community showed it's wonderful support with a fantabulous opening night event and an engaged audience returning for the artist's talks on the Saturday. Thankyou again to each of the exhibiting artists from the Black Gully Printmakers who shared their moving stories and images...so rewarding to have been part of the very first exhibition of Material Thinking: The Poetics of Process.

Material Thinking:Glen Skien and The Black Gully Printmakers

Image: Beth O'Loughlin: montage and monotype 2019

Opening at the New England Regional Art Museum: Armidale 

Friday 8th February: 6pm.

Material Thinking:The Poetics of Process

Featuring the works of Glen Skien and The Black Gully Printmakers

Artists talks 11.30am Saturday 9th February 

Exhibition dates: February 8-April 28th

Ritual of The Garment: Armidale and The Black Gully Printmakers

Monotype and photographic transfer...R.

Returning from a two day workshop at the Armidale Regional Gallery working with the Black Gully Printmakers group. In a workshop that literally used the material surfaces of a range of garments, each participant was asked to bring a garment or fragment of material as a means of exploring notions of ritual through print and collage. Extending upon the use of the photographic image as a form of disturbance, each participant used the most basic monotype methods to create a variety of rich and engaging works.

Thankyou to all who participated. The time and care taken by each participant in not only the making but also in reflecting upon the nuanced associations between material and medium, often so easily passed over within the process of making, made the experience truly satisfying. The outcomes of the workshop will be exhibited at the Armidale Regional Gallery together with my own works in February.  

                                                        Works in progress... B.

                                              Works in progress...(detail) B.

Material Thinking in Mittagong

Returning from 5days of the first of the Poetics of Process workshops. Studio outcomes were a mix of print editions, hand bound artists' books and experimental works.

The class was a nice balance of beginners, intermediate and experienced prinmakers. The brief was for participants to respond through either a single or combination of processes I demonstrated, to create a series of visual narratives. 

They were encouraged to avoid the familar formula of a progressive natrative.  Instead intuitively responding to the personal affinity  they felt for a particular process or equally an awareness of not connecting with certian things. 

Inevitably the book form requires an element of design but essentially each of the book forms created evoked the possibility of open and multiple readings. Material 

So thankyou again to each participant for their trust and capacity to forego the familiar desire to always be in control of that deeply subtle relationship that exists between the making, the form and the very thoughts of the material itself.

Material Thinking: The Poetics of Process

Material Thinking: The Poetics of Process is a series of workshops I have designed for visual art students with the onus on creating meaningful artworks through a poetic interpretation of the relationship between making/process and the use of materials. The following outline provides an overview of concepts and approaches. I am available to present these workshops throughout Queensland together with Material Thinking: Poetics of Process lectures, artists' talks and professional practice workshops.  

MATERIAL THINKING: The Poetics of Process

A series of studio-based workshops that explore the poetics of making.

Presented by visual artist Dr. Glen Skien (DVA,MVA)

 

The Poetic Concept

Material Thinking: The Poetics of Process provides the opportunity for visual art students to engage in a series of creative workshops underpinned by a form of ‘material thinking’. Through a series of studio-based strategies that allow for unexpected poetic associations, material thinking provides a platform for the development of students conceptual thinking. The emphasis of any process driven methodology is a belief that the ‘making’ informs the conceptual, in contrast to the concept perpetually informing the process of making.

The motivation of each workshop is for students to embrace a contemporary application of collage-based disciplines that enables them to analyse and interpret their initial exploration of materials and process to help define their conceptual concerns.

The models that support each of the workshops are structured towards printmaking, collage and drawing-based practices such as the monotype, montage, photographic transfer technique, the artists’ book, and the box assemblage. The interdisciplinary nature of each workshop allows for a mix of 2D and 3D interpretations. The outcomes of each lesson provide students with the opportunity to create meaningful responses through a better understanding of the relationship between materials and process.  

The strategies that guide each of the material-thinking workshops are as follows:  

·         Creating unexpected juxtapositions to form unfamiliar visual relationships.

·         The merging of self-narrative (personal stories) as a way of questioning cultural and historical narrative structures.

·         Imaginative play. Students are urged to embrace the concept of

‘intuitive knowing’.  

·         Exploring the nature of the fragment. Students explore the capacity of ‘the fragment’ to inform narratives relating to identity and notions of place.  

·         The deliberate shattering of progressive narrative structures.

·         Leaving conceptual gaps that create spaces of doubt. The notion that not every element or response needs to be bound to a semiotic intention.

·         Embracing and deliberately extending perceived contradictions.

·         A rigor of observation and appreciation of the meanings and contexts often embedded in both materials and processes.

·         Engagement with poetic and metaphoric thinking/making.

Phenomenology Based Descriptions

A significant element to the series of material-thinking based workshops is the integration of a written component whereby students are encouraged to document their reflections on processes and use of materials. Essentially these descriptions present a form of deconstruction and personal decoding of student’s outcomes. In its most fundamental definition phenomenologically based descriptions provide a strategy for documenting both objective and intuitively grounded responses that offer a platform for identifying and articulating the essential meanings embedded within their studio responses. The basis for inclusion of phenomenology-based descriptions relates to providing students with a personal strategy for facilitating independent analysis and evaluation of their studio outcomes. The documentation of studio responses also provides a method for students to identify the context of their works in relationship to professional artists and contemporary arts practice.

For a more detailed outline of each workshop please contact me:

Glen Skien

email: silentparrot1@bigpond.com

mob:0427 850 782

Redlands 'Collage'...Artists' Book

The completion of my residency with Redlands College. The collaborative book project during my time there was a blend of collage, print, text and photographic transfers. The art students were a delight to work with in part due to the wonderful support of both visual arts teachers Andrew Peachy and Jenny Burgess. I am always amazed at the maturity of students. I feel certain that my senior years at high school could have been so more rewarding and productive if I would have had the same level of encouragement and support that both Andrew and Jenny provide for their students. It was rewarding to witness a visual arts program that is readdressing the over emphasis on conceptual development and allows process driven responses to inform meaning.

With the depletion of studio practice within Queensland's major visual arts institutions the outcomes of students within the senior school art programs are creating the calibre of works that hold their own in comparison to the outcomes of graduate institutions. Thank you again to all involved at Redlands. A fantastic environment.    

Hats Off... Redlands College art students...

(Fig.1)

One of the year 10 classes joined me yesterday for a session of monotypes and photographic transfer techniques. Both very simple processes but as always with printmaking it is often the most fundamental responses that are capable of evoking the most memorable images. I was conscious of relaying methods that extend within my own practice that recognises the poetic engagement with process and allowing the choice of medium to inform the thinking and the 'aboutness' of their final works. Not that they had a lot of time to 'resolve' anything. The session was very much focused on responding. 

At rare times throughout my teaching career I have recognised a certain nexus of creative intention that is suddenly evident within a particular group dynamic. It is a collective energy that simply arrives within a workshop or class situation where a high standard of individual creative responses suddenly mirrors the collective intentions of the group. In some strange way that I am unable to fully articulate the individual and the collective is transformed into a singular entity. It can be a rare event but yesterday this small class of students responded in ways that were quite inspiring.

(Fig.2)

(Fig.3)

(Fig.4)

(Fig.5)

Redlands College....Artist in Residence

Redlands College Year 10 Art Class  (figure.1)

The second week as artist in residence at Redlands College. My time so far has been a mix of artists talks and demonstrations in all things print with students from both the middle and senior school visual arts program. I have been continually impressed with how focused, mature and highly articulate the students are towards interpreting each of their class projects. Often they are having to interpret concepts that hopefully will continue to be questioned and reinterpreted in some creative form as they transition into adulthood. Having to reflect on themes relating to identity, place and the nuanced rituals of their daily
lives it is the kind of questioning that inevitably allows them to recognise how creativity, in all its semblances, is an essential part of feeling connected to 'the everyday'.

(figure 2.)

   (figure 3.)

BIA...Ideas and Images in Print

(fig.1)

I had the pleasure of working with a dedicated and creative group of printmakers at the Brisbane Institute of Art over the weekend. The workshop was a blend of print and the book form with a focus on each of the participants connection with their chosen process. It required a generosity of  trust in participants response to often uncertain outcomes. So thank you to all who spent the two days immersed in all things print and bookish. The print  environment at BIA has restored my faith in 'art institutions' capacity to provide access to what students of print simply love doing without hindering their creativity.    

(fig.2)

Foto Metafisica...works in progress

Photo Metafisica (i)

Foto Metafisica is the title of a series of artists' books (works in progress) that form my initial response to the unnamed and unidentified photographic images available in the archival collections at the State Library of Victoria as part of my creative fellowship with the library and supported by the iconic Baldessin Press. Although in its initial stages essentially I am interested in exploring/questioning the nature of the found photograph as memory-image. As a photograph devoid of any fixed narrative, historical yet vacant of its immediate known history, the nature of memory and the past seems to be placed in a state of suspension. The once grounded photographic image placed at a threshold between the fictional and the poetic.

Photo Metafisica (ii)

Photo Metafisica (iii)

Photo Metafisica (iv)

Photo Metafisica (v)

Reasonable & Necessary...Artel Artists Tour

Drawing head gear: Artel Group

Museums and Galleries Queensland have just announced a showcase touring exhibition, Reasonable and Necessary: Prints and Artists' Books from the Artel Artists group that embraces the creative endeavours of artists with a range of complex disabilities. This is such fantastic news. During my time involved with the Griffith Printmaking Club students supported the 36 Hour Print fund raising event that specifically raised funds as part of their support for the touring show. So thankyou again to that special group of print students who donated their works and invaluable time to contribute towards such a fantastic outcome.

Please visit Museums and Galleries Qld. Facebook page and let their wonderful team know how deserving this exhibition is.  

Finding Familiar States: Baldessin Press and the State Library of Victoria

Exterior view of the State Library of Victoria

A week ago I had my first extended days of becoming familiar with both of the spaces I will frequent over the course of the next 12 months. My time at the State Library of Victoria was divided between a formal induction into the procedures and methods for investigating the archival materials as well as learning to navigate the mirrors of space that were somewhat overwhelming at times. Walking from my office/studio space and standing below the expanse of the dome in a vacant main entrance room after closing time was the moment I realised how special my time at the library would be. I feel rather spoilt with the allocation of an assistant from the library's pictures collection to help me access the collection.This provides such a crucial element in finding a starting point to my project.

My early beginnings have swayed towards studying the photographic images of early Melbourne. It extends an on going intrigue with the photographic image and all that it invokes. On my flight down I took a book of collective essays of Susan Sontag. Her reflections on the photographic image were so astute that despite the arrival of the digital and virtual format of the photographic image her views remain poetically insightful. During this initial visit I viewed a series of early photographic images from the carte de vista collection which were essentially a handheld size photographic calling card popular in the 1800's.     

Interior view of the State Library of Victoria

My visit to Baldessin Press at St. Andrews was also a way of becoming familiar with how the studio space operates. Both Tess and studio technician Silvi, a wonderful printmaker in her own right, were very generous with their time and 'space' as it was a busy few days for the studio. I did manage to have 'a play' with a series of monotypes. Thankfully I have learnt to recognise what one needs to discard. But I enjoyed the play.

My feelings towards being in the space where George Baldessin once printed and to have his works floating within the same interior spaces was simply a reality that I never thought possible. So my unfolding time at Baldessin Press is not so much a dream come true but a reality that crosses over into dreaming. 

Baldessin Press: Interior (1)

Baldessin Press: Interior (2)

Dream Voyage

Dream Voyage: 2018

I wanted to reflect briefly on the creative closing and opening of doorways and the threshold spaces that are often made available through teaching within the throes of an art institution.The closing of my recent door has been a decade of association with the wonderfully creative and passionate printmaking students I have had the most existential pleasure of teaching at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane for the past decade.

That time, space and experience has unfortunately run its course as any meaningful and memorable narrative must do. Each beginning is not so much a search for a conclusion but simply a way of responding in the only way one knows how within the unfolding of a progression of experiences that inevitably script their own conclusions.
The difficulty in surrendering the pages of a novel that one finds difficult to put down provides an appropriate analogy in describing my feelings towards the conversations, the instruction and the deciphering of students creative responses I experienced throughout my time at the QCA studios. I will miss the thought space that your images provided.

Students are often oblivious to the concept that teaching in its most essential manifestation is a two way street. The fortunate and most perceptive teachers recognise that they have as much to learn from their students as hopefully students recognise in their tutors. I feel that I have been remarkably fortunate to be inspired by the depth of your imaginative minds and images encountered during my time there. So thank you all. Special regards to those who have wished me well with my recent Amor Fellowship with the State Library of Victoria in association with the iconic Baldessin Press...truly the start of a dream voyage. 

Brooching New Ground...'N o t i o n s'

For the past six months I have been absorbed in a collaborative project with Brisbane based emerging artist Michelle Wild that has focused on the creation of a collection of wearable pins and brooches that blend Michelle's print and small objects background with my own print and collage methods. The results are presently on show at our exhibition titled 'Notions' showing at the Wooloongabba Art Gallery in Brisbane. The collection forms a series of works that evoke a whimsical and impulsive use of discarded images and surfaces that extend what collage naturally does in allowing new narratives to remain in a perpetual state of flux. 

Wearable pin: Bound collage stamp: John Le Carre series.

Wearable pin: Bound collage stamp: John Le Carre series

Wearable pin: Bound collage stamp: John Le Carre series

Phenomenology of Image and Text....

detail of work in progress from the pages of Phenomenology of Image and Text...

Phenomenology of Image and Text  is the artist book that has been accepted into the Artspace Mackay Regional Gallery 'Libris Awards'...as with most books I rely on the bringing together of disparate elements that tend to delivery their own suggestions and evocations.I could add 'their own meaning' but it seems to me that they provide very little of any essential meaning. This is where I begin to sound somewhat repetitive in my explanations but essentially the poetic response avoids the embrace of one fixed response. The ambiguity of the relationship between alphabetical text, names of places, Brisbane suburbs and streets and the placement of repeated images of a male figure taken from an illustrated book on healthy breathing and exercise for men seems to me to be something that is difficult to pin down to one singular response apart from the overarching reference to the strangeness of the relationship between the naming of things and the object or the image it represents.

Of course the realm of semiotics delivers systematic ways of deciphering the relationship between the object or place and how language has been chosen to represent it...something I so consciously avoid. This may seem an odd thing but I like the experience of having what I make remain within a threshold of being unfamiliar...Phenomenology of Image and Text is an attempt to hold onto that sense of the unfamiliar.

1.detail of pages from Phenomenology of Image and Text...etching and photographic transfer.

2. detail of pages from Phenomenology of Image and Text

3. detail of pages from Phenomenology of Image and Text

4. detail of pages from Phenomenology of Image and Text

detail of work in progress from  the pages of Phenomenology of Image and Text

The Wayzgoose Adventure...2018

The Museum of Print

Having just returned from four days at the Armidale Regional Gallery and the Museum of Print as part of the 2018 Wayzgoose event I thought I would take the chance to thank Robert Heather and his fabulous gallery staff for presenting a diverse range of speakers and workshops that really did deliver something memorable for everyone. Of course I will make special mention of the Black Gully Printmakers group and those who were nice enough to give up their Saturday for a day of printing and book binding with me. I am smiling as I type because I realise how much I pushed for everyone to finish the project in a single day which I will reveal now is often presented with an extra half day. So thank you to you all for your diligence and commitment to the workshop.I was very pleased that all participate left with a hand-bound series of prints. The Black Gully Printmakers have a wonderful studio space situated within the gallery and is juxtaposed beside the Museum of Print space. Being there in the studio for the open day I was given a wonderful reminder of the reasons why I make prints with the sense of community and sharing of stories expressed about each of the works that were part of a print/swap/raffle event. A series of artists talks were presented by visiting artists including myself but the most memorable and very moving talk was given by the Black Gully printmakers president Cat MacGregor. Cat spoke about her work with a deep sense of connection and meaning that perhaps the more experienced and academic of us have unremembered. So thank you to Robert and the Black Gully printmakers in providing the opportunity for me to continue to be part of the print community. 

1.detail of participants  works...

2.

the big print...2018