Vital Signs: Taroona

Vital signs: Taroona is a woodcut installation in response to a suburban site wedged between a mountain and a river in the southern island of Tasmania. The scale of the print welcomes the viewer into a milieu, a meeting place to consider the rhythms of water, the flows of the current and how the human and nonhuman inhabitants become entangled in the river flow. Large scale prints become an environment where process is made visible, the decisions of the artist open for scrutiny alongside the natural conditions and preference for material behavior. The paper is printed, stitched, folded, stacked and unwrapped in a new environment.  

The prints are made from jigsaw woodblocks that are printed on both sides allowing the image to fold and interweave like the saltwater and freshwater currents of the river estuary in Taroona. The technique is based on Japanese woodblocks where each print is hand-printed with Sumi ink in differing tones with the final layer printed in lithographic ink. The Japanese paper takes up the sensuous wash of water and staining ink, whilst the lithographic ink highlights the woodgrain. The patterns of nature combine with observations of culture.  

The membrane of paper captures the vital signs from materials and site. The forces and materials of nature are gathered up into signs and patterns, a language to enfold a space, a site, into culture to make a place. A place where the intangible becomes tangible through material cultural artefacts and in turn returns that energy into an intangible reading of the importance of caring and being aware of the vital signs of the environment.