Held on the 16th May 2024
at 5pm to
6pm
, Northern Tasmania
Inveresk Library - 216
Summary:Join us for an art panel with Emmalyn Hawthorne and Lex Palmer-Bull to hear them discuss their recent works
Lex Palmer Bull
Artist Statement:
This artwork is an exploration of spatial dynamics through a material-led approach. Through the interplay of line, shape, and form, the work traces and maps the space it inhabits. Guided by the inherent qualities of the chosen materials, the artwork unfolds such that each material dictates the unfolding visual landscape through a process of tracing and mapping the space it inhabits.
Central in this work are the chosen materials: yellow trace, a familiar medium often employed in plan making, and unfired clay. The decision to leave the clay unfired imbues the artwork with a sense of vulnerability and impermanence. Unlike fired clay, which undergoes a transformation into a durable state, unfired clay remains in a state of flux, susceptible to external influences such as temperature, humidity and impact. This inherent fragility invites contemplation on the transient nature and temporality of shifting environments, while underpinning the conceptual framework of the work.
The clay shapes within the installation were not meticulously planned but rather formed instinctually, guided by an intuitive act of making in response to the physicality of the clay. The rough, imprinted textures were born from the act of pressing the forms into concrete bricks that once served as the foundation of a previous artwork. In this sense, this textural component acts as a visual injection of previous materials, akin to a mother used to ferment a new iteration; a building evolving from an existing foundation.
Through this marriage of materials and techniques, the installation invites viewers to contemplate the symbiotic relationship between creation and evolution, where materials predicate the curation of a space.
Artist biography:
Lex Palmer Bull is an Australian artist based in Launceston, lutruwita, with a passion for exploring the intersections of uncertainty and structure in her artwork.
In her artistic practice, Lex blends traditional printmaking techniques with digital processes, crafting works that invite contemplation on the conceptual and technical aspects of the medium. Her exploration of uncertainty is manifested in the symbolic representation of precipices and structural elements, serving as metaphors for the complex and ever-changing nature of existence.
In addition to, and often incorporated in, her printmaking practice, Lex has a deep-rooted fascination with material-led art making, sculpture, and installation. This interest stems from her early fascination with architecture and three-dimensional forms, which gradually evolved into an appreciation for process-driven art and the inherent beauty of construction within the realm of printmaking, sculpture, and installation.
Emmalyn Hawthorne
Artist Statement:
In her recent body of work, Astrolabe, Emmalyn has been using Optical Character Recognition software to ‘read’ skylines and 3D printing to model the output. The software interprets the skyline as though it were handwriting, comparing the curves and angles to its database of written text. Sometimes just jumbles of letters and punctuation come out and other times whole words or phrases. For Inveresk Library, Emmalyn has engaged with the view from level three, installing the resulting sculpture in alignment with the skyline that generated it.
Emmalyn finds skylines and words are similar in that the way we perceive them depends upon our own positioning within physical and cognitive landscapes. Always in flux, they evolve and morph as we continue to interact with them over time. 3D printing then gives form to these histories — its layering of a thin line of filament across a surface not dissimilar to stacking pages and pages of writing. An astrolabe is a hand-held astronomical instrument, sometimes regarded as a rudimentary analogue computer, used for reckoning time and making measurements that enable the user to orientate themselves both on Earth and within the celestial sphere. This work offers a similar means of orientation and understanding, charting lines back through times, perspectives, and our, frequently destructive, use of the landscape and of words.
Artist biography:
Emmalyn Hawthorne is a Meanjin/Brisbane based artist and writer. A process of collage investigating negative space has brought her to an expanded practice using new media processes. She is interested in how unusual juxtapositions and semantic multitudes in life foreground our need to make meaning. "There is something sad but also really human and honest in trying to narrativise the incongruous.”
Image credit :
Left : Emmalyn Hawthorne, installation view
Right: Lex Palmer Bull, intallation view
