HUW DAVIES GALLERY 8 September – 2 October 2016 In the Landscape Amy Dunn and Annika Harding Images left to right: Annika Harding, The way I walked #1 (detail), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 21.0cm x 29.0 cm. Amy Dunn, Moving through colour (detail), 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 14.0 x 21.0 cm Landscape is the entity in which humans exist. While this seems self evident, something so obvious can be easy to forget. Especially as our imaginations run wild or the daily grind of the everyday gets the better of us. Landscape provides the ultimate context for our social and cultural fabric. It can be endlessly responded to, re-­‐imagined and explored. In the Landscape sees Amy Dunn and Annika Harding delve into and explore the landscape around them. Both primarily painters, Amy and Annika combine photographic and painting practices to explore the landscapes in this exhibition. Annika Harding’s last few bodies of work have been relational paintings. Not 'relational aesthetics' in an art historical sense, but something a little more innate: relational by depicting personal relationships with the landscape. From images of playing in the snow, to walking trail arrows, her work directly relates, relays and recounts time spent exploring local geography. It is a manifestation of her interaction with the bush-­‐scape around her. This most recent series of work invests a new spin on Annika’s relational bush-­‐scapes, firstly through medium. While Annika often uses photographs as a starting point for a painting, this exhibition sees them become both the starting point and final result. Annika has explored a new mode of making for this exhibition, by working paint into a photographic image. Furthermore, the relational aspect has been heightened through these painted additions. The sections of painted colour become a didactic tool – where Annika is directing the viewer to what Manuka Arts Centre is an ACT Government arts facility
she observed, touched and thought about, during her walks. She invites the viewer to experience her relationship with the landscape and to appreciate it as she does. Amy Dunn shares Annika’s passion for the landscape. Having studied together at ANU School of Art and created work alongside each other for many years; the pair have developed similar ideals and are interested in sharing their experiences of the world around them. Both are passionate about the environment and how humans interact with it. While Annika’s series explore an almost internal story (the figure depicted is Annika herself), the character in Amy’s work is anonymous. Blurred, the figure walks through dark and ambiguous spaces ranging from the outdoors to more urban environments. Amy’s works have the uncanny ability to walk in the liminal area between painting and photography. She explores a similar method to Annika of overpainting her photographs, however her works are quite distinct. They speak as much about light and the surface, as they do about the figure and a relationship with her surrounds. Amy’s paintings build on her photographs by purposefully seeking to capture what the eye cannot see. Through intentionally photographing figures with long shadows and direct sunlight, Amy creates a haunting effect, where the camera catches movement that may not otherwise have been seen. By enhancing these effects digitally and printing on watercolour paper, she continues to add layers of distortion with paint. This layering of distortion technique is key to her photographic paintings, hovering between these two mediums. The technique of overpainting is not a new concept to photography. Typically used in portraits, hand-­‐colouring (hand painting or overpainting) was popular in the late 19th Century. It offered colour and additional realism to what would otherwise have been black and white images. More contemporary practice has seen overpainting popularised by German artist Gerhard Richter. His works are extremely gestural and see large blobs of paint, swirled and splattered against old 'happy-­‐snap' photographs. These examples are altogether unlike both Annika and Amy’s paintings. Richter explores an area somewhere between painting and photography, as do Annika and Amy. However, their explorations illuminate a different elucidation of landscape. Although Annika and Amy’s works explore similar boundaries, their works of art are infinitely more delicate. Their photographs are selected, directed and shot in the landscape. This process creates a cycle of responses from both artists: their photographs are initially a response to their surrounds, and their paintings are both a response to the photographs and exist within the photographs. Their meticulous and methodical practices demonstrate for both artists, two different ways of being in the landscape. Ellen Wignell, September 2016 Ellen Wignell is a curator and writer, currently working at Newcastle Art Gallery Amy Dunn | Artist statement This body of work describes walking as an act of engaging with the space, atmosphere and light around us. My photographic mixed media works explore our experience of space via light and movement. By using pictorial elements, I intend to create the feeling of moving through and being part of this space for the viewer. The definition of edge is important in my work, both literally and metaphorically. That is, the space between the figure and the landscape and breaking down this relationship to comment on how we fleetingly inhabit the world. Defining our physical relationship with the natural world, depicting this subtle, sensitive and fragile boundary. Amy Dunn | About the artist Amy Dunn is the Coordinating teacher of Visual Art at the Australian Performing Arts Grammar School in Sydney and an independent professional artist. Amy spent the last six years teaching visual art and photography in the ACT education system and showcasing her own work in a variety of exhibitions. Amy holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Art History and Geography and a Bachelor of Visual Arts with a major in painting and a minor in printmaking and drawing from the Australian National University. She also holds a graduate diploma in PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery | Manuka Arts Centre | Cnr Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent Griffith ACT | www.photoaccess.org.au
education. She has been awarded government grants for her teaching initiatives and her students have won a range of art and photography competitions. Annika Harding | Artist statement Photography is the means by which I observe and record my interactions with the landscape. While the digital photographic image usually informs paintings in my practice, in this body of work, I have explored this process in a different way. The photograph is printed, and then paint is used to record and highlight my interactions with the landscape. As well as flat colour and metallic paint, the paint that I have used in this work includes interference paints, which at certain angles appear almost transparent, but at others lights up with iridescence. These works each explore one particular way that I interacted with a particular landscape: things that I looked at, things that I touched, the way that I walked through the landscape, things that I put into the landscape, or things that I thought or said. I have spent quite a lot of time in the featured landscapes (Aranda Bushland, Black Mountain Reserve and the forest behind Arteles Creative Center in Finland), as they have all surrounded places I have lived this year. Annika Harding | About the artist Annika Harding is a Canberra-­‐based emerging artist, curator, Gallery Manager and PhD student. Annika has held three solo exhibitions and has organised and been included in numerous group exhibitions since 2012. Annika’s paintings are held in the collection of the ACT Legislative Assembly, as well as many private collections around Australia. In January 2016, Annika undertook a residency at Arteles Creative Center in Finland, which has had a lasting impact on her thinking about landscape and art practice. Image List 1. Amy Dunn, Cockatoo Island landscape 2, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 2. Amy Dunn, Cockatoo Island interior 2, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 3. Amy Dunn, Cockatoo Island landscape 1, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 4. Amy Dunn, Cockatoo Island interior 1, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 5. Amy Dunn, Figure in built environment 2, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 18.5 x 27 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan Amy Dunn, Figure in the built environment 3, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 18.5 x 27 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan Amy Dunn, Moving through colour 2, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 18.5 x 27 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan 8. Amy Dunn, Moving through colour 3, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 18.5 x 27 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan 9. Amy Dunn, Centennial Park walk 2, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 10. Amy Dunn, Centennial Park walk 1, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 11. Amy Dunn, Centennial Park walk 3, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 12. Amy Dunn, Figure in Bronte Park, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 17 x 25 cm, unique $80 13. Amy Dunn, Figure in Centennial Park, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 17 x 21 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan Amy Dunn, Figure in built environment 1, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil and watercolour paint on paper, 17 x 21 cm, unique $200 $80 Hi res scan 15. Amy Dunn, Moving through colour, 2016, inkjet print, coloured pencil, felt tip pen and watercolour paint on paper, 62 x 42 cm, unique $350 16. Amy Dunn, Moving through shadows, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 62 x 42 cm, unique $250 17. Amy Dunn, Moving through light, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 62 x 42 cm, unique $250 6. 7. 14. edition of 2 edition of 2 edition of 2 edition of 2 edition of 2 edition of 2 PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery | Manuka Arts Centre | Cnr Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent Griffith ACT | www.photoaccess.org.au
18. Annika Harding, Something that I touched in the landscape (morning walk, Aranda), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 cm, unique $200 19. Annika Harding, The way that I felt in the landscape (morning walk, Aranda), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 cm, unique $200 20. Annika Harding, Putting myself in the landscape (morning walk, Aranda), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 cm, unique $200 21. Annika Harding, The way that I walked through the landscape (afternoon walk, Black Mountain), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61cm, unique $200 22. Annika Harding, Something that I looked at in the landscape (afternoon walk, Black Mountain), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 cm, unique $200 23. Annika Harding, A thought that occurred to me in the landscape (afternoon walk, Black Mountain), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 cm, unique $200 24. Annika Harding, Five ways of interacting with the landscape (looking, touching, walking, thinking, adding something [in no particular order]; in Aranda Bushland, Black Mountain Reserve, forest at Haukijärvi in Finland), 2016, all inkjet prints and acrylic on paper, 21 x 29 cm each, unique $60 each Image: Annika Harding, Something that I looked at in the landscape (afternoon walk, Black Mountain), 2016, inkjet print and acrylic on paper, 46 x 61 c m, unique
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