2023 Scholarship
This Scholarship Printmaking submission is a personal project about Trans/Queer identity and the feelings and raw emotions that arise through repression of identity. The workbook is raw in its delivery of the thoughts and ideas that the candidate wrestles with daily, both in living life and when drawing and making prints. It is significant that they have chosen to bring the viewer into their world to both share and educate through their own lived experience of queer suppression.
Compositional spaces within the prints communicate the poignancy of the candidate’s experience and speak to loss, isolation, repression and intimacy. The candidate exercises an ethic of care in the way they make marks and compose each work on the folio. Evidence of the plate edge on prints is impactful and locates the image in space and the subject (themselves) in time within a scenario. The poses utilised throughout the work are authentically composed; looking at the work, we see into the figure’s world and understand and feel the nuance and tensions being communicated.
Visual devices are employed that conceptually nod towards the complexity of emotions and purposefully disguise their identity and presence through tactics like shielding and burying oneself. This ‘hiding in plain sight’ is established through figure poses and gestures, the absent figure and silhouette, subtle visual references to the ways they feel the pain of masking their identity through the imagery of everyday activities (e.g. drinking depicted through cans, bottles, a single glass and bottle, and red wine stain on the floor). There is a strong sensitivity to tone and form, light and contrast, including restrained use of colour, which is well-managed through printmaking conventions and technical care. Tonal shifts in ink and line equal a change in emotional state or mood. Likewise, when the image becomes jumbled with multiple line drawings layered onto one another, we visibly understand the tension and an audible shift of perception.
The workbook is predominantly notational, with many images of experiments and works in development and other exploratory processes/works that led to folio works (or were being made in parallel: painting and photography). Artist reference is relevant and provides ways for the candidate to think about mark-making in relation to emotion and how they can build a heightened sense of character, feeling and actions. The pace of the folio works beautifully, emphasising the tension of the felt emotions through its calm and spatially-considered format.
Download 2023's Scholarship Printmaking exemplar [PDF, 6 MB]
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2022 Scholarship
This Scholarship submission delves into themes of personal identity, cultural collision, and the candidate's relationship to artmaking. Their perspective on identity is that it embodies the experiences and values accumulated throughout their life, with deep ties to their family and across generations.
Hailing from the Philippines, they explore their cultural background, living conditions, past life, early childhood, and traditions. The central subject matter revolves around memories and the contrasting differences between their life back in the Philippines and their current life in New Zealand, specifically addressing the dichotomy of poverty versus wealth.
The artworks involve a translation of photographs into prints through digital processes and various print techniques, such as drawing, mixed media, woodcuts, etching, pronto printing, screen printing, and cyanotype. These techniques serve to expand and extend the possibilities of mark-making. The individual layers in their works each correspond to specific moments in time or images, and these layers symbolise the layering of memories, both literally and metaphorically. This effect is achieved through the use of transparency, veiling, tracing paper, and a sensitive approach to mark-making, which includes the incorporation of mixed media like tape.
Different surfaces are utilised to communicate tone and meaning, including collagic application of the candidate's own ripped-up prints, reinforcing the idea that "memories are layered, non-linear, and sometimes misleading." Technical aspects like blurring, obscuring, wiping, fading, and torn edges are employed to convey a sense of time, effectively capturing the fragility of memories across and over time.
The exploration is deeply personal for the candidate, who considers it an insightful learning experience fostering personal growth. The workbook includes subheadings that outline the depth of their search and the lines of inquiry pursued: Personal Growth, Memories/Identity, Cultural Collison/Transition, Existentialism/Mortality, and Exploration of Space & Time/Abstract. These contexts not only support but also document the candidate's progression through their own process of self-reflection, discovery, and journey through life.
Artistic references play a crucial role, chosen for their techniques and conceptual underpinnings, which further enrich the proposition. In the workbook, the candidate engages in a highly reflective process of analysis, seamlessly shifting between questioning, describing thoughts, and exploring drawing and printmaking media/processes. Their interest lies in the potential of images, drawing, and printmaking to communicate the complexity of living and the "invisible aspects of emotion, the unconscious, and memory."
Each image in the portfolio captures a distinct moment, realisation, or episode from the candidate's life, collectively representing their unique story and journey of discovery and growth from their origins in the Philippines to their present life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Download 2022 Scholarship Printmaking workbook pages [PDF, 33 MB]
2020 Scholarship
This Scholarship submission presents a sophisticated and engaging body of print work. The candidate's personal enquiry revolves around the dissonance they feel between themselves and their roots in the Christian faith. They instigate an authentic proposition, grounded in their everyday world, from a critical standpoint. This approach provides strength to the enquiry, exploring subject matter, imagery, representation, print and media techniques, devices, and approaches.
Photographic studies are utilised to consider light, colour, and form, establishing the overarching theme of the proposal and serving as a metaphor for the candidate's faith. The workbook is incredibly honest, thorough, and analytical, with meaningful and insightful commentary shared. The candidate draws inspiration from the film "mother!" by Aranofsky (2017) for visualising the content they want to explore, and this becomes a key strategy in formalising how their subject area and personal experience can be translated into printmaking.
The film enables an imagery series to develop, incorporating the candidate's own story, including reoccurring nightmares, as a basis for photo shoots exploring ideas of home as a symbol of God's vision. This refers to the place of their existence while growing up, where they were taught their belief systems and values. The candidate also references McCahon as a critical influence, aligning spirituality and symbolism through formal compositional devices, light and dark, shapes and forms, and mark-making.
The imagery is exploratory, demonstrating excellent control over print methods and media. The candidate strategically chooses specific processes at different points in the folio work, creating a secondary narrative. For example, the early monoprints on coloured grounds translate well from the candidate's photo shoot, embedding a spiritual aspect. The composition is broken down into abstract layering, with separation of forms and shapes that appear to 'let the light through,' representing the crumbling and shifting of faith.
Various techniques, such as the destruction of materials and image through burning and mark-making, along with the use of translucent papers and found surfaces/printed matter, amplify the feelings of uncertainty and instability in the artwork. The candidate undertook all of this work during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, which influenced the tone, sensibilities, and subject matter used as a metaphor to represent the institution, ideas of isolation, and impending change.
Reading the workbook alongside the portfolio reveals a considered and thoughtful self-reflective exploration. The candidate grapples with their identity within the context of a crucial moment of change and reflection about their faith. Simultaneously, the portfolio work demonstrates a well-moderated, exploratory endeavor to actively engage the print medium in their journey.
Download 2020 Scholarship Printmaking workbook pages [PDF, 15 MB]