Cane Toad Narrative(Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions) Helen Lancaster (Australia)

Preamble
This blogspot contains posts of artworks that have featured in my curated international exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions. For your convenience I have listed these posts below.
ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions (Marie-Therese Wisniowski - Curator's Talk)
Sequestration of CO₂ (Engaging New Visions) M-T. Wisniowski
Sacred Planet I (Engaging New Visions) J. Dunnewold
Under Pressure (Engaging New Visions) L.A. Beehler
lo Rising II & Giza (Engaging New Visions) R. Benson
Etruscan Relic (Engaging New Vision) J. Raffer Beck
Catch The Light 1 & 2 (Engaging New Visions) J. Schulze
Emerge (Engaging New Visions) J. Truckenbrod
Breathe Deeply (Engaging New Visions) C. Benn
Die Gedanken Sind Frei 3 & 4 (Engaging New Visions) C. Helmer
Black Birds I & II (Engaging New Visions) C. Holmes
Autumn Visions I & II (Engaging New Visions) J. Petruskeviciene
Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Engaging New Visions) N. Starszakowna
Quite Alone Oasis… (Engaging New Visions) J. Urbiene
Nothing Is The Same I & II (Engaging New Visions) E. van Baarle
Discharge Thundercloud (Engaging New Visions) K. Kagajo
Shroud Of Ancient Echoes I & II (Engaging New Visions) S. Fell-McLean
Visionary and Eclipse (Engaging New Vision) J. Ryder
Untitled ArtWorks (Engaging New Vision) Tjariya (Nungalka) Stanley and Tjunkaya Tapaya
Treescape (Engaging New Vision) A. Trevillian

For your convenience I have listed below posts on this blogspot that featured the artistic output of Helen Lancaster (my dear friend who passed away on the 11th February 2020).
Cane Toad Narrative (Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions)
Transformation. An Exhibition of Contemporary Textiles Curator: Helen Lancaster
Floating: Art Exhibition @ Purple Noon Art And Sculpture Gallery
Celebration
The Barrier Reef Corporate Wall [1]: Art Cloth Panels
Helen Lancaster's - The Great Barrier Reef

Introduction
The Australian contribution to - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions – will be on the blogspot for the next few weeks, thereby completing the contributions to this exhibition.

The catalog of the exhibition is far more detailed in terms of opening addresses and artist’s biographies, curriculum vitae and statements etc. and moreover, is a holistic record of the exhibition itself.

Synopsis of Artwork:Cane Toad Narrative
I call myself a conceptual environmentalist. I research and am impassioned about nature, listening to and reading about messages from people such as David Suzuki, Jacques Cousteau, Helen Caldicott and many others.

ArtCloth is another way to explore controversial topics of interest such as the current Cane Toad invasion. The concept is of major concern.

My piece is entitled Cane Toad Narrative and was created this year (2009). It is 1.2 meter wide and three meters in length and uses the following media: Jo Sonja’s artist’s colours and textile medium; fabric crayons; fibre reactive dye.

The techniques used are: Mono and block printing; stencilling, painting, stitching, stamping, drawing, tyre printing, machine embroidery; rubbings, attached objects, padding and painted velvet.

I love working on satin and velvets. Here the beetles have been created from padded velvet, painted in gold and smoked pearl. The satin background provides a lustrous sheen contrasted by matt and gloss areas throughout. The cane underneath the beetles was first created with mono printing and painting. The panels, which form the entire piece, depict the life cycle of the Cane Toad as follows.

PANEL 1: Unfortunately cane beetles inhabit the tops of the cane and thrive there because the toads can neither jump nor climb to this height.

PANEL 2: Shows the cane beetles larvae, which live amongst the roots of the cane. Beetles only come to the ground once a year to lay their eggs.

PANEL 3: The toads deposit their eggs in ponds or puddles.

PANEL 4: Represents lines of 30,000 eggs. The female produces two strings of eggs simultaneously (one string from each ovary), which hatch within 38 hours.

Each toad has a paratoid gland full of poison, which can kill by spray or ingestion. The toad feeds on small lizards, marsupials, frogs and insects. The lower part of this panel shows the small lizards, geckos, marsupials, a monitor (which normally eats frogs), a goanna and a death adder - all of which die from eating toads.

PANEL 5: This panel represents frog and insect kill.

PANEL 6: Honey bees returning to their hives are eaten by cane toads waiting in ambush.

PANEL 7: Road kill - people enjoy trying to exterminate the cane toads by driving over them. Other methods of destruction include the use of cane toads as golf balls, and more humanely, collecting then freezing them to death. The work has consisted of choices for example: how much of the life cycle of the Cane Toad to include; how to achieve a balance between design and realism; the choice of colours - the normal colour of the toad is an ochre but it mainly moves in the night so my chosen palette has depth to suggest darkness but is relieved by vibrant greens to evoke sugar cane and grass.

Techniques
Mono block printing; stencilling, painting, stitching, stamping, drawing, tyre, printing, machine embroidery, rubbings, attached objects, padding, painted velvet. Jo Sonja’s artist’s colours and textile medium; fabric crayons, fibre reactive dye on satin. Unbleached calico backing.
Size: 120 (width) x 300 cm (length).

(a) Cane Toad Narrative, (Helen Lancaster), left artwork.
Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, NSW, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(b) Cane Toad Narrative (Helen Lancaster) left artwork.
Orange Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Alan Sisley, Director, Orange Regional Art Gallery.

(c) Cane Toad Narrative (Helen Lancaster) right artwork.
Redcliffe City Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Karen Tyler, Director, Redcliffe City Art Gallery.
Photography by Al Sim.

(d) Cane Toad Narrative (Helen Lancaster) second artwork from right.
Wangaratta Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(e) Cane Toad Narrative, (Helen Lancaster) - full view.

(f) Cane Toad Narrative (Helen Lancaster) - detailed view.

Shroud of Ancient Echoes I & II(Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions) Susan Fell - McLean (Australia)

Preamble
This blogspot contains posts of artworks that have featured in my curated international exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions. For your convenience I have listed these posts below.
ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions (Marie-Therese Wisniowski - Curator's Talk)
Sequestration of CO₂ (Engaging New Visions) M-T. Wisniowski
Sacred Planet I (Engaging New Visions) J. Dunnewold
Under Pressure (Engaging New Visions) L.A. Beehler
lo Rising II & Giza (Engaging New Visions) R. Benson
Etruscan Relic (Engaging New Vision) J. Raffer Beck
Catch The Light 1 & 2 (Engaging New Visions) J. Schulze
Emerge (Engaging New Visions) J. Truckenbrod
Breathe Deeply (Engaging New Visions) C. Benn
Die Gedanken Sind Frei 3 & 4 (Engaging New Visions) C. Helmer
Black Birds I & II (Engaging New Visions) C. Holmes
Autumn Visions I & II (Engaging New Visions) J. Petruskeviciene
Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Engaging New Visions) N. Starszakowna
Quite Alone Oasis… (Engaging New Visions) J. Urbiene
Nothing Is The Same I & II (Engaging New Visions) E. van Baarle
Discharge Thundercloud (Engaging New Visions) K. Kagajo
Cane Toad Narrative (Engaging New Visions) H. Lancaster
Visionary and Eclipse (Engaging New Vision) J. Ryder
Untitled ArtWorks (Engaging New Vision) Tjariya (Nungalka) Stanley and Tjunkaya Tapaya
Treescape (Engaging New Vision) A. Trevillian

Introduction
The Australian contribution to - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions – will be on the blogspot for the next few weeks, thereby completing the contributions to this exhibition

The catalog of the exhibition is far more detailed in terms of opening addresses and artist’s biographies, curriculum vitae and statements etc. and moreover, is a holistic record of the exhibition itself.

Synopsis of Artwork: Shrouds of Ancient Echoes
The new vision - in Shrouds of Ancient Echos - I am celebrating is an echo, an improvisation, a new melody based on old know-how. Rhythms and repetitions, elements intrinsic to Itajime Shibori, become the echoes of this new melody. The rhythmic patterns that result from the process, honour traces of the past and inform my present. My interpretation of landscape uses the subtle colours of dyes sustainably extracted from indigenous eucalyptus leaves.

Only 150 years ago all colourants were derived from natural products, and while modern synthetic dyes enable the colouring of almost any material in a vast range of hues, such that our contemporary ideas of colour are rarely surprised, this sensibility of colour has developed in a very short time frame within our history. The resurgence of natural dyes as contemporary alternatives for colouring cloth is an exciting field that allows us to ‘walk lightly on the earth’.

Organic and muted hue from - E Melliodora (Yellow Box) - allow me to evoke a textural layered landscape of eroded rock surfaces, worn through time. I find a use for something discarded, iron scrim, which creates patterns of both continuity and individuality. Layers of colour and texture, details and shapes become palimpsests within the work.

The shroud - of natural wool fibre - acknowledges the role in the perpetual renewing cycle of life and death, as if time is a continuum.

Just like Echo, the mountain nymph of Greek Mythology, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others, Itajime shibori implies resonance and reflection. I suggest a process of unfolding and emerging, as I engage my viewer within transformations of the textile surface to reveal the beauty and subtleties inherent in Shibori as ArtCloth. Connections between land and cloth unfold, revisiting the resonances of the deep past and inviting new ways of perception.

Techniques
Itajime shibori on wool, using clamps, stitched resists and iron scrim. Dyed with leaves of Eucalyptus Melliodora (Yellow Box).
Size: Each piece is 60 (width) x 300(length) cm.

(a) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I & II (Susan Fell-McLean) centre left artwork.
Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, NSW, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Cedric Boudjema, Director, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

(b) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I & II (Susan Fell-McLean) - right artwork.
Orange Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia (left artwork by Regina Benson - see earlier post).
Photograph courtesy Alan Sisley, Director, Orange Regional Art Gallery.

(c) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I & II (Susan Fell-McLean) centre artwork.
Redcliffe City Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Karen Tyler, Director, Redcliffe City Art Gallery. Photography by Al Sim.

(d) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I & II (Susan Fell-McLean) centre artwork.
Wangaratta Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(e) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I (Susan Fell-McLean) - full view.

(f) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes I (Susan Fell-McLean) - detailed view.

(g) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes II (Susan Fell-McLean) - full view.

(h) Shrouds of Ancient Echoes II (Susan Fell-McLean) - detailed view.

Discharge Thundercloud(Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions) Ken Kagajo (Japan)

Preamble
This blogspot contains posts of artworks that have featured in my curated international exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions. For your convenience I have listed these posts below.
ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions (Marie-Therese Wisniowski - Curator's Talk)
Sequestration of CO₂ (Engaging New Visions) M-T. Wisniowski
Sacred Planet I (Engaging New Visions) J. Dunnewold
Under Pressure (Engaging New Visions) L.A. Beehler
lo Rising II & Giza (Engaging New Visions) R. Benson
Etruscan Relic (Engaging New Vision) J. Raffer Beck
Catch The Light 1 & 2 (Engaging New Visions) J. Schulze
Emerge (Engaging New Visions) J. Truckenbrod
Breathe Deeply (Engaging New Visions) C. Benn
Die Gedanken Sind Frei 3 & 4 (Engaging New Visions) C. Helmer
Black Birds I & II (Engaging New Visions) C. Holmes
Autumn Visions I & II (Engaging New Visions) J. Petruskeviciene
Razing/Raising Walls, Warsaw (Engaging New Visions) N. Starszakowna
Quite Alone Oasis… (Engaging New Visions) J. Urbiene
Nothing Is The Same I & II (Engaging New Visions) E. van Baarle
Shroud Of Ancient Echoes I & II (Engaging New Visions) S. Fell-McLean
Cane Toad Narrative (Engaging New Visions) H. Lancaster
Visionary and Eclipse (Engaging New Vision) J. Ryder
Untitled ArtWorks (Engaging New Vision) Tjariya (Nungalka) Stanley and Tjunkaya Tapaya
Treescape (Engaging New Vision) A. Trevillian

There are also a number of posts on this blogspot featuring Japanese textiles. For you convenience I have listed these posts below:
Discharge Thundercloud
The Basic Kimono Pattern
The Kimono and Japanese Textile Designs
Traditional Japanese Arabesque Patterns (Part I)
Textile Dyeing Patterns of Japan
Traditional Japanese Arabesque Patterns (Part II)
Sarasa Arabesque Patterns (Part III)
Contemporary Japanese Textile Creations
Shibori (Tie-Dying)
History of the Kimono
A Textile Tour of Japan - Part I
A Textile Tour of Japan - Part II
The History of the Obi
Japanese Embroidery (Shishu)
Japanese Dyed Textiles
Aizome (Japanese Indigo Dyeing)
Stencil-Dyed Indigo Arabesque Patterns (Part V)
Japanese Paintings on Silk
Tsutsugaki - Freehand Paste-Resist Dyeing
Street Play in Tokyo
Birds and Flowers in Japanese Textile Designs
Japanese Colors and Inks on Paper From the Idemitsu Collection
Yuzen: Multicolored Past-Resist Dyeing - Part 1
Yuzen: Multi-colored Paste-Resist Dyeing - Part II

Introduction
The Japanese and Australian contribution to - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions – will be on the blogspot for the next seven weeks, thereby completing the contributions to this exhibition

The catalog of the exhibition is far more detailed in terms of opening addresses and artist’s biographies, curriculum vitae and statements etc. and moreover, is a holistic record of the exhibition itself.

Synopsis of Artwork: Discharge Thundercloud
In the field of dyeing, there are many excellent traditional techniques in Japan. Having studied dyeing at university, I endeavored to depart from stereotypical expressions based on those established techniques. My emotions and the traces of my movement of spreading paste with the squeegee are expressed as beautifully dyed images on cloth, fully reflecting improvisation that was out of the question with traditional techniques.

Techniques
Discharge using paste, hydrosulfite on velveteen.
Size: 92 (width) x 400 cms (length); display size - 92 (width) x 300 cm (length).

(a) Discharge Thundercloud (Ken Kagajo) centre artwork.
Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, NSW, Australia (left and right artworks by Claudia Helmer - see earlier post).
Photograph courtesy Cedric Boudjema, Director, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

(b) Discharge Thundercloud Ken Kagajo) centre artwork.
Orange Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(c) Discharge Thundercloud (Ken Kagajo) centre artwork.
Redcliffe City Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia (left artwork by Claudia Helmer, right artwork by Norma Staszakowna - see earlier posts).
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(d) Discharge Thundercloud (Ken Kagajo) centre artwork.
Wangaratta Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.
Photograph courtesy Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

(e) Discharge Thundercloud (Ken Kagajo) - full view.

(f) Discharge Thundercloud (Ken Kagajo) - detailed view.

Selected Disperse Dye ArtCloth WorksArtist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
Over the past decade or so, I have created a new signature technique named MultiSperse Dye Sublimation (MSDS). This technique employs disperse dyes and involves hand printing multiple resists and multiple overprinted layers, employing numerous color plates and plant materials. The completed works are rich in color, light, shade, contrast, movement, depth, and moreover, yield a three-dimensional quality to the finished printed artworks. For your convenience, I have listed the following posts on this blogspot that also features this technique using cloth as the medium.
When Rainforests Ruled
Wangi’s Djirang
Merge And Flow
Flames Unfurling
Sequestration of CO₂

Introduction
This post follows on from the last two weeks of posts on disperse dyes where I uploaded examples of students works in the five-day, two-day and one-day workshops that I tutor both nationally and internationally with numerous textile groups, at textile forums and conferences.

This week I have uploaded some of my selected ArtCloth works using disperse dyes. My current work explores contemporary socio-political landscapes, which includes Post-Graffiti work - where I employ dyeing, discharge, stenciling, screen printing, digital imaging and other processes on natural fibres - and the natural environment - where I employ painting, resist, screen printing, digital imaging and transfer processes using disperse dyes on synthetic fibres.

Some of the selected ArtCloth works below feature my signature technique, which I developed and have termed, MultiSperse Dye Sublimation (MSDS). The technique employs disperse dyes and involves hand printing multiple resists and multiple overprinted layers employing numerous colour plates and plant materials.

The completed works are rich in colour, light, shade, contrast, movement and depth. The multiple layers also imbue a painterly aesthetic and textural, three-dimensional quality to the finished ArtCloth works.

Artist statements are provided with some of the artworks. I hope you enjoy viewing the selected works.

Title: Rainforest Glow.
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on panne velvet.
Size: 42 (width) x 30 (length) cm.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Global Warming - Surviving Remnants.
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 20 (width) x 20 (length) cm.
Collected By: The Americas Biennial Exhibition & Archive Collection, University of Iowa, Iowa, USA.

Artist Statement:Blossoms Falling - Lotus Rising
Australian plants have a unique and sustainable life-death cycle in which remnants of past generations become the fertilizer to nurture new shoots of the next generations. The venerable Buddhist Master Hsing Yun has often reflected upon this life-death cycle. The fine ArtCloth print, “Blossoms Falling - Lotus Rising”, reflects upon the connectivity between the “fall” and the “rise” of so many processes in nature and moreover, of so many historical events within our civilisation.

Title: Blossoms Falling - Lotus Rising.
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 76 (width) x 56 (length) cm.
Collected By: London Print Studio Collection, England.

Title: Blossoms Falling - Lotus Rising II.
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 23 (width) x 13 (length) cm.
Collected By: Private Collector, Melbourne, Australia.

Title: Golden Glow.
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 56 (width) x 76 (length) cm.
Collected By: Private Collector, Newcastle, Australia.

Title: Gondwana Memories (dyptich) (a).
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 13 (width) x 23 (length) cm.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Gondwana Memories (dyptich) (b).
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation technique on satin.
Size: 13 (width) x 23 (length) cm.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Cultural Graffiti VI (detail view).
Technique: MultiSperse Dye Sublimation and the artist’s Matrix Formatting Silkscreen (MFS) technique employing disperse dyes and pigment on satin.
Size: 30 (width) x 200 (length) cm.
Collected By: Private Collector, Canberra, Australia.

Artist Statement:Sequestration of CO₂
Carbon dioxide (CO_2>) is a dense colorless gas. Its emission into the atmosphere via the burning of fossil fuels has become a major concern with respect to climate change. Consequently, around the world a new vision is taking root amongst the decision makers, namely, the need to balance opposing processes in order to ensure our ecosystem becomes a steady-state environment.

Carbon dioxide plays an essential part in two similar but opposite processes of considerable importance namely, respiration and photosynthesis. All plants on the Earth contribute to photosynthesis and the subsequent output of both stored chemical energy in the form of biomass and the significant by-product oxygen (O₂). Photosynthesis is a daytime activity since it requires light to make it happen. Photosynthesis reaches its maximum CO₂ consumption in mid-morning, which drops of progressively thereafter.

All plants on the Earth are involved in the respiration process; namely, they also use the stored energy and oxygen in metabolic activities associated with growth and reproduction. Respiration does not need light and so it is a day as well as a nighttime activity. However, nighttime plant respiration generally releases a maximum of CO₂ into the atmosphere within a few hours of darkness, which drops progressively thereafter.

For an ecosystem to maintain itself the output of the photosynthesis must be at least equal to the respiratory demands of the system. The “Sequestration of CO₂” explores the similar (but opposing in direction) diurnal patterns of photosynthesis and respiration in an Australian Ecosystem setting.

Title: Sequestration of CO₂ - Diurnal pattern of photosynthesis in an Australian Ecosystem (full view).
Technique: MultiSpersed Dye Sublimation using delustered satin.
Size: 60(width) x 300(length) cm.
Held: Artist Collection – available for purchase as a dyptich only.

Title: Sequestration of CO₂ - Diurnal pattern of respiration in an Australian Ecosystem (full view; see ArtCloth – Engaging New Visions Exhibition blogs).
Technique: MultiSpersed Dye Sublimation technique using delustered satin.
Size: 60(width) x 300(length) cm.
Held: Artist Collection – available for purchase as a dyptich only.

Diurnal pattern of photosynthesis in an Australian Ecosystem – detailed view.

Diurnal pattern of respiration in an Australian Ecosystem – detailed view.

Artist Statement: Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series.
The ‘Bolt’ series is inspired by the four Australian seasons. The series highlights the ‘Liquid Sun’ (in the form of a bolt) felt in terms of colours that represent each of the Australian seasons (summer, autumn, winter and spring). The Australian landscape and its uniqueness is a constant source of inspiration and the Bolt Series aims to uniquely define the Australian continent. This work was hand painted and heat transferred using dye sublimation processes on satin.

Title: Summer Bolt (Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series).
Technique: Hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin.
Size: ca. 1.50 (width) x 2.00 (length) meters.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Autumn Bolt (Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series).
Technique: Hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin.
Size: ca. 1.50 (width) x 2.00 (length) meters.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Winter Bolt (Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series).
Technique: Hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin.
Size: ca. 1.50 (width) x 2.00 (length) meters.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.

Title: Spring Bolt (Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series).
Technique: Hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin.
Size: ca. 1.50 (width) x 2.00 (length) meters.
Held: Artist Collection – not available for purchase.