Arts Trail Artists
The 2010 Jackeys Marsh Art Trail is an exciting new addition to the Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival, and involves artists from around Tasmania who share a strong commitment to exploring issues of environmental concern in their work. The Forest Art trail will remain open to the public until Saturday 20th March 2010. Open daily 10am to 4pm. Contact Forest Walks Lodge on 63695150
Many of the artists in this project have exhibited together previously in environmental installation projects throughout Tasmania, including Shadows in the Waters 2005/2007, Forest Festival 2008, and Shadows in the Forests – the Art of Exclusion 2009.
For this project they have been joined by a number of local artists and younger emerging artists from the region, with the more experienced artists mentoring the newcomers in site specific environmental installation art processes.
Artist and Artwork Details
Martin Cole
now Hobart based, has been actively involved in a range of community and environmental arts actions since moving to Tasmania in the early 1990′s, and recently held his first painting solo at Arts Alive in Launceston.
Martin Cole & Kazz
‘Spirit Eagle’
The eagle was made for an exhibition in the Upper Florentine in the Forestry Exclusion Zone during 2008 ten days on the island. Its title then was Breathe. The banners had been used in many protests in tree sits protecting eagles nests, hung in the weld and in anti pulp mill rallies. Those banners were called to rest and new ones made for this festival using leaves from trees all around the Island and on site and has been re-titled to embrace a deeper social awareness of our interconnections with the forests and all their inhabitants.
Materials: Remnants of discarded tents, raw silk, myrtle, eucalyptus and wattle leaves (used as dyes), thread and rope
6.5 metres x 9.5 metres
Vicki West
is a Tasmanian Aboriginal artist with a strong national reputation. She is represented in numerous public collections including the National Museum in Canberra, and has been actively involved in a range of both Aboriginal and broader community projects including the Tayennebe weaving project.
‘mowinedurum’ (water making noise)
Water is like blood – its what keeps the earth alive
Materials: kelp, red satin, bush dyed fabric
Robert Ikin
is a well-known Tasmanian Artist. Rob has exhibited widely including most recently in Holland. He works in a range of media including sculptural installation, painting and film.
‘Six Points of Contemplation : Readings From the Book of Changes.’
Contemplation and stillness as a potent form of action, the way of the Buddhas over millennia. This I explore in this piece of work, a simple piece with a potentially positive function.
Materials: wood, sticks, paint, various fastening mediums.
app 1.8m 8m wide x 4m x 6
Gardenia Palmer
has worked extensively in Art in education providing creative workshops to children throughout Tasmania over many years. Primarily a painter, Gardenia also works in installation and community projects. She has exhibited extensively including overseas.
‘Signpost’
Sign : evidence, index, mark, witness, indication, symptom, indicator, signification, expression, gesture, signal.
Materials: Wood and found objects.
1.6m x 1.3m
Ralf Haertel
is a Launceston based artist who has been active in a range of community – based projects including the Arts Alive artist run initiative, Interweave, and the Shadows projects. His current practice incorporated natural dyes, textile based installation and film.
‘Hope Flower Seed’
The idea for the original installation of Hope Flower Seed was developed after spending a day and night in the Upper Florentine Valley in South West Tasmania – drinking of the incredible beauty of the place, the clean air, the trees that just keep going up, and the wonderful hospitality and camaraderie of the forest activists (mostly young, many international) who, through their continued actions provide a clear hope for the future of our threatened old growth forests.
This work incorporates natural dyes collected from trees destroyed in the making of the forestry access road into the Upper Florentine logging coup, and reflects on alternative, sustainable ways of utilising these resources.
The Jackeys Marsh installation of the work celebrates and provides a direct link to these old growth forests and the continuing fight to protect them.
In this time of acute awareness of the potential catastrophic consequences of global warming, the well documented contribution that clear-fell forestry has made to this situation internationally, and the growing body of evidence to support the critical role that old growth forests can play in re-balancing our threatened world, the continued logging of these forests in Tasmania is nothing short of environmental vandalism.
Materials: Silk, Hemp cloth, natural dyes, 12 v sound responsive lighting on solar recharger
Approx 6m height X 10 m diameter
Cecily A. Edwards
Cecily is a dedicated forest activist who uses her arts practice to support community actions against unsustainable forest practices. Her recent work has mostly been exhibited in forest protest sites, including the Upper Florentine Valley in SW Tasmania.
‘Fugitives’
On the frontline of the woodchip war, we see the way in which the thugs and thieves are assisted in their carnage by the neo-colonial administration. The roles, these pawns in the corporate profit game play, have their roots in the mythologies and histories of the colonisers. Same old, same old. We must be vigilant on our watch, to witness and monitor, indeed resist the atrocities that obstruct our path to a truly sustainable future.
Materials: Hemp Cloth, Charcoal, Acrylic Paint, Poly rope
Eric Broome
works in a variety of media including painting and textiles. He has undertaken residencies in Sydney and India in 2006, and his work is represented in collections nationally and internationally.
‘Displaced sustainability’
If artists develop their arts practice through expression of identity then art evolves as a collection of fictional stories. Arts practice is therefore sustained through history maligned. I appropriate John Glover and Georg Baselitz because of their intimate connection to other.
Materials: Photomontage on bird netting
App 5.5m x 5.5m x 10m
Jo Anglesey
is a site specific installation artist who has exhibited locally and nationally including In-Site-Out NSW 2007, Townsville Strand Ephemera 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009. Her work has a cultural and environmental commentary focus.
‘Wattle Dance’
Understanding ‘sustainability’ begins for me with a never ending awe of Mother Nature and Her natural cycles. The Old Testament speaks of the Garden of Eden as a place in the distant past. I propose that you are standing in one of the many examples of heaven on Earth.
The materials used in Wattle Dance were harvested in 2008 at the last Forest Festival when the forest floor was ankle deep in wattle seed pods.
These wattles (like other flora and fauna) have foreknowledge of the seasons and inherent knowledge of their own sustainability code and do not necessarily seed annually. Two years later I return to pay homage and to communicate my belief that we need only to look around outside our human condition for examples of total sustainability.
Materials: Wattle Seed Pods , Golden beading thread Variable
app 2 –3m x 1-2m x 10squ m
Laura McKew
is one of the 2008 trial project coordinators, and has a strong commitment to community and social equity arts projects. Her arts practice is conceptually based, and incorporates a broad range of media and techniques.
’ I Love a Broken Fence -Part 2’
Part one was at Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival 2008 and was just the act of observing the broken fence. I wanted to mark the observation because the decline of western society is the the most exciting and hopeful thing to me.
Materials: Etched Aluminium plate 7 x 10cm, found object
App 7m x7m
Sam Beckman and Maya McDonell
moved to Golden Valley, near Jackeys Marsh in 2008 to focus on developing their careers as artists. They are currently undertaking a NIES course and have been developing a strong local and regional exhibitions record.
‘Revealing’
The lining of unexpected colour is intended to prompt anyone who notices to question whether the bark is really meant to look like that. It is hoped that this will then trigger a realisation that there are many things to be noticed in the forest that one might never have seen before. Using dyes extracted from plant material from the forest itself also alludes to the many and varied intrinsic qualities found in a forest that are not immediately appreciated with a typically perfunctory human appraisal.
Materials:
Natural dyed raw silk (using acacia, eucalyptus, leptospermum), cotton thread
Ross Byers
has developed a dynamic career as a community and installation artist, with a number of public art commissions and community and youth projects undertaken over the past 3 years. Much of his work is in the form of large-scale cardboard sculptural installation.
‘Stretching Man’
I am ever present in my environments, making cultural markings and objects, marking my time in history.
I believe not every mark humans make has to be an ugly stain.
Materials: Cardboard, paint and glue
Niecy Brown
is a local artist with a strong association with the Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival since the 1980′s. She exhibited in early festivals, and has been an active community artist in the region, including coordinating the Deloraine Yarns project.
‘Bridges – many ways to cross’
Bridges is a recurring theme in my art and environment work. I like to think that differences can be overcome by creating a way forward, where there is a gap then make a bridge. Where there is fragile terrain, cross over with care. Making bridges is one thing albeit with the best intent. To walk the bridge, cross the gap is another whole concept and involves giving ground, compromise, respect for the difference if not for the different view RE SPECT – look again.
In constructing this bridge I had two concurrent ideas running. 1. A bridge can be the physical structure that defines a stretch of a difficult passage. 2. ‘the world is in an uproar’ and 2010 is the year of the Metal Tiger so I have called upon the tiger’s courage to acknowledge the gap and its bark to mark the crossing.
At any given time my current work is a stepping- stone to the next thing. At the time it is all encompassing and absorbing but with a little distance it seems that one product, job, activity leads into the next. The stepping- stones are the means of protecting the fragile mossy banks of the brook and I invite you to walk with care and joy.
Materials: Bridge 1. Pehang vine, poly pipe, copper wire, fish ferns and yip yip bark.
Bridge 2. Stones from nearby.
2m –3 m x 1m – 3m x 6m
Christopher Legend
a Northern Tasmanian based sculptor whose work has been primarily focused on environmental engagement and the use of site specific materials, found objects and ephemeral installation.
‘NATURALLY PLASTIC – 350?’
- Deconstructing the myth of industrial alienation of nature.
- Personal addiction to bottled carbonated natural mineral water and creative response to it
- Carbon neutralisation in process
Materials: Recycled plastic
app 2m x 3m
John Parish
is a Deloraine based sculptor who has worked in metal fabrication for many years. His dynamic works are strongly inspired by the local landscape and in particular the majestic birds of the region.
‘Eagle & Works of the Devil’
“Unforgiven, for they do know what they do.”
While investigating the presence of native creatures on my land, using soot covered print paper, the devils interacted by scratching the paper thus making ‘art’
Materials: Steel and 100 year old maps of Tasmania on canvas, 250 x 200 ceramic tiles
Annie Zohn
is a local artist with a strong commitment to exploring environmental issues in her work.
‘Feathers of Hope Forest’
Hope is that thing that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops ….at all. Emily Dickenson
In a world heavy with despair for life on our Earth and weary from the mighty battle we do daily to save it. Hope feeds our souls and strengthens our will.
Materials: Steel rod & pipe, moulded paper on steel frames
app 1.5m x 18
The art trail also includes two permanent installations from 2008 by Rob Duffield and Joanna Anglesey, 2008 trial project coordinators and artists.
Rob Duffield
has worked in a broad range of media, and has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in Tasmania and Queensland, as well as curating community exhibitions and projects in Tasmania since 2008.
‘What you see depends on where you stand’
2008
Stand in the circle and see what words you discover. Stand in the forest and question what you see. Where we stand politically influences how we see the land and whether we see a resource, a commodity, a beautiful forest, our potential.
This work is a permanent exhibit installed as part of the Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival Art Walk in 2008
Joanna Anglesey
‘Gum and Bark‘ 2008 – ongoing
‘Gum and Bark’ is made with pulped discarded Examiner newsprint paper roll ends, moulded over heritage iron lace and painted to achieve a faux beaten copper finish then reapplied here, like a false bark to a small gum tree. The title and the process and the work therefore allude to more than a literal interpretation
This work is a permanent exhibit commenced as part of the Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival Art Walk in 2008
Artwork images courtesy of Ralf Haertel, Martin Cole and Zsuzsa Stinner.
The 2010 Jackeys Marsh Forest Art Trail was supported by funding from Festivals Australia, an Australian Government program which supports cultural activity at regional and community festivals. The Australian Government is proud to be associated with the 2010 Jackeys Marsh Forest Festival.
