![]() ![]() The Overwintering Project encourages artists to engage with the birds in their area, to visit their habitat and contribute artworks which will be exhibited in galleries with the view to engaging people with the importance of preserving and protecting critical habitat as unfortunately a number of these shorebirds are on the endangered list. The lives of these birds is truly fascinating as their trip involves doubling their body weight before setting out and flying for thousands of kilometres to reach their destined breeding grounds. These little known birds travel between Australia, Asia and as far as Siberia and Alaska to breed and return on their annual flight making journeys we can only dream of. We were fortunate enough to have Kate open the exhibition on Saturday and deliver a heartfelt speech about the plight of migratory shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. On the weekend of the 23rd and 24th June the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop held their Overwintering exhibition as part of a larger project overseen and instigated by Kate Gorringe-Smith, artist and environmental activist based in Melbourne. Kate has a glimpse of the endangered Eastern Curlew at Stockton Sandspit before returning home Pass it on will remain on exhibition throughout September. Penny Wilson addresses the point of risk in their artist statement, writing that the ‘process encouraged spontaneity and confidence in taking new directions on works that could not simply be discarded as with our personal practice but instead were to be passed on.’ NPW is open to the public from 10am – 2pm every Tuesday except in school holidays and is located at 27 Popran Road, Adamstown, NSW. Archer writes in their statement ‘Inevitably aspects of previous work are changed or lost in order to make an image that works, and this feels both exciting and risky.” In the photographs accompanying the exhibition there are details that do not appear in the final works, attesting to the inevitability Archer mentions. In respect to the amount of risk involved in this particular project, it is noted that editions were not produced, which meant there was only one original of each image with which to work. Pass it on is an example of how collaboration can have a positive effect on creative risk-taking. These collaborations make for interesting conversations, especially as they are accompanied by photographs of the intermediate stages of development. Hallinan M., McDonald G., Murry M., Clifton C., Hundt R., Untitled, 2020, mixed media on paper, 420 x 297mm, courtesy of the artists Their work includes city buildings reflecting the sun and other colourful planetary shapes organic patterned panels decorating small house sculptures and birds appearing as overseers of human habitation. In the four works based on the theme of the city, Sally Picker, Judy Henry, Vicki McNamara and Amanda Donohue depict scenes which may suggest the city is interrelated with, but also separate from nature. Media in the works include drawing, painting, watercolour, linocut, collage, screen print, wood block, sculpture, drypoint, collagraph, stencilling, chine-collé and etching. The variety of technical processes reveal decisions that were guided by the project at hand. Printmakers who are normally committed to a singular medium combined different print processes and non-print processes, while others were familiar with using print as an integral part of a broader mixed-media approach. As the project progressed, a mashup of ideas formed into unique hybrid outcomes. There was an open choice of media to compensate for artists not having access to a printmaking workshop during lockdown. Carol Archer, whose recent work focuses on artistic collaboration as well as its role in a tertiary education context, wrote in their artist statement for Pass it on, “Working with five people was challenging as it meant that each of us, at each stage but the last, needed to calculate what level of contribution would assist the development of the image while respecting others’ completed and potential contributions.” These were subsequently passed on to another artist until all artists in the group had contributed to each other’s work. Each artist started an image, then passed it on to another artist for them to add their part. Artists formed two groups of five, and one group of four. Currently on exhibition at NPW is the resulting work of fourteen members who participated in the project. The project has a three part theme of the city, woodlands, and urban meets nature. The Pass it on project began during lockdown in early 2020 with the aim of keeping Newcastle Printmakers Workshop (NPW) members making art and remaining connected.
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