autumn 2014 volume 49 number 1 image + identity [2] the quarterly journal of the print council of australia inc. printmaking + works on paper + digital art + artists’ books in this issue image+identity [2] news 04 PCA General Manager’s report by Rachel Hancock 32 Al-Mutanabbi Street: keep talking… Where does one project start… where does it end? by Sara Bowen 35 Australia in print In the Summer 2013 edition of IMPRINT we published 14 articles on the theme of ‘Image and Identity: inventing ourselves in print’. My call for articles in an earlier edition of IMPRINT resulted in many other fascinating submissions, now also included here. They testify to the current strength of storytelling as the basis for compelling contemporary prints. Some of the featured artists focus on relationships with a particular place or, by extension, stories long-associated with it. In his Cook’s Conquest series of linocuts, Rew Hanks mixes emblems of the old and the new, Australia’s natives and its imports, to humorously challenge this country’s grand myths of colonial settlement and national identity. On a more local scale, Kim Tarpey’s prints reflect her personal environmental concerns in the aftermath of a major bushfire, while Juliana O’Dean’s collaborative book with poet Les Murray documents landscapes to which they are both connected through history or experience. Place is fundamental to the very different print practices of G.W. Bot and Alexi Keywan, the former well known for her unique iconography of the Australian bush and the latter, increasingly, for her stark emblematic urban forms. In their empathy for refugees and asylum seekers, the prints of Pat Waters and Inga Hanover bear witness to the human consequences of loss of place and effaced identity. To rebuild the ‘self’ in the aftermath of geographical displacement and loss of order, the travelling exhibition Semblance of Order names the essential condition for an outward assurance of identity. Jazmina Cininas and Kati Thamo look to their European heritage, and its folktales in particular, to reclaim an imaginative realm for their prints. In the context of identity politics, Cininas’s portraits of female werewolves represent transgressive ‘others’; Thamo also draws on archetypal imagery but weaves a more personal narrative about family into her small theatrical shadow plays. Sue Fraser and Jonas Ropponen’s stories about personal identity combine often difficult truths with humour; both refer to the often indelible mark of childhood experiences, broadened in Fraser’s case by her propensity for annexing other stories to her own and, in Ropponen’s case, by his development of alter egos to fulfill different roles in his life. Lastly, as the West revs up to commemorate the start of World War I, Jim Pavlidis’ print series provides a subtle reminder of small local identities overshadowed by grand wartime narratives. Pavlidis’ prints are the result of a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship. Coincidentally, this edition of IMPRINT also highlights the fruits of three other recent SLV fellowships: a major exhibition (Colin Holden’s Rome – Piranesi’s Vision), Angela Cavalieri’s complementary print installation and Christine Johnson’s botanical prints. I also commend to you Kerry Spokes’ article on her intriguing iPhone prints and Joshua Searson’s article introducing seven dynamic young Adelaide printmakers. Happy reading… • Sue Forster, Editor image + identity 05 Rew Hanks: Cook’s Conquest by Elin Howe 06 Art and Community by Kim Tarpey 08 A Tale to Tell: the linocuts of Sue Fraser, printmaker, by Sue Fraser 09 Jonas Ropponen: Seeking Identity and Selfunderstanding through Being an Artist, by Jonas Ropponen 10 Enchantment and auto-ethnography in Kati Thamo’s Chasing Shadows by Dr Ann Schilo 11 The Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame by Jazmina Cininas 12 Semblance of Order, introduced by Angela Butler 14 A Shadow on the Heart: seeking ‘Home’ in exile by Inga Hanover 15 Face to Face with Asylum Seekers by Pat Waters 16 Pictures of an intimate war. How a 100-year-old diary sparked a new print series by Jim Pavlidis 17 Ancient Earth, Fresh Ground by Juliana O’Dean exhibition p/reviews 18 Alexi Keywan – Some place else… by Travis Paterson 19 Interior murmur – the worlds of G.W. Bot by Maurice O’Riordan 20 Array – new works by Jenny Kitchener, previewed by Steven Giese 21 Explorations – new prints by Christine Johnson, previewed by Morag Fraser 22 Angela Cavalieri’s Guerra and Amore by Sue Forster 24 Rome: Piranesi’s Vision at the State Library of Victoria, introduced by Dr Colin Holden 26 The Print Circle’s The Sheltering Tree reviewed by Carole Best 27 The Tree in Changing Light. Collaborative prints by Marianne Courtenay and Kathryn Orton, reviewed by Lucia Parrella studio news 28 Adelaide’s Underground Cult of Print by Joshua Searson 30 There is no periphery. Celebrating the 5th anniversary of The Art Vault, Mildura by Patricia Wilson-Adams book review 33 Holding a Mirror to the World. Lateral Inversions: The Prints of Barry Cleavin by Professor Lesley Duxbury new technology 34 IPhoneography by Kerry Spokes