Book Studio

Woops, we fell off the internet again. Sorry about that. Sometimes there’s just so much happening that it’s hard to stop and write the blogpost.

One of the resident alumni this year is Nicci Haynes. Nicci graduated from Printmedia & Drawing here at the ANU School of Art midway through last year.

She is spending time in the Book Studio, experimenting with her printmaking and learning how to use letterpress. Today she’s playing with the smaller of our two presses, the Korrex cylinder proofing press. She’s using paper masks to print type onto some of her old intaglio prints.

Here’s a (bit fuzzy) sample:

I won’t make any promises about keeping an eye on Nicci’s work as it progresses, but I’ll do my best

Bernie Slater, last year’s Graduate Resident in the Book Studio, and Julian Laffan, who will be the Book Studio Grad Resident next semester, have work in the latest exhibition at the ANU School of Art Gallery, Thresholds of Tolerance. They are part of a collective called Culture Kitchen, incorporating Australian, East Timorese and Indonesian artists, raising awareness of human rights issues in the Australasian region. The series of images, printed onto large (and portable!) white sheets using various techniques such as woodblock, screenprinting and stencil spraying, are titled We Refuse to be Victims.

They have just been profiled on triplej, and you may catch them talking on the radio over the next few days. If you are in Canberra it is worth a trip to the gallery to see the real thing and to see the video footage the Australian team shot whilst travelling through the region. The exhibition is on until 5 June 2007.

Bernie Slater is a graduate from the ANU School of Art Printmedia & Drawing Workshop, and is one of the current Alumni-in-Residence in the Book Studio.

His latest work, We know who we are (pictured) is a massive 4-section banner silkscreen on paper. It’s showing as part of a group show called Octopus 6: We know who we are in Melbourne at Gertrude Contemporary Art Space in Melbourne until 18 August 2006. The show then moves to the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale, Victoria from 26 August to 17 September 2006.

This print has also been selected for the new Social Commentary Prize based at Warrnambool. I’ll post more details on that when I get them.