Enter this blog for information on print competitions, print biennales, shared experience in studios and artist in residence and art fairs. www.gayepaterson.com


Saturday, January 10, 2015

Skopelos Works on Paper at Mylos Studio / Skopelos



STEPH BOLT + GAYE PATERSON
2 weeks of art & culture on a beautiful island in
Greece
25 May -
7 June 2015

Late one warm summer evening in June I silently slipped into the harbor of Skopelos. This was the beginning of a long love affair. The friendships remain as strong as ever. The island constantly inspires my art. With a degree in graphic design I have moved between photography, publishing and drawing but mostly printmaking. Much of my time has been in Europe, as an artist, a tutor and as an artist in residence. These skills and the beauty of Skopelos I wish to share with you. In these 14 days whilst we explore the island I will take you through printmaking techniques at a level you are comfortable with but pushing you beyond the traditional techniques with individual attention. During my many residencies I have balanced an understanding of the culture I am placed in and been able to produce a portfolio of work that has pushed my skills and understanding of the medium.


For all information and registration:




Olive Tree, linocut



Inertia VII, woodblock


Skopelos, 1975

Skopelos, 1975

Skopelos, 1975


Visit to Myanmar - April 2013

Seeing Aung San Suu Kyi again after 25 years
Friend and political leader, Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein
                   
Artist, Win Pe Myint
Gold beating in Mandalay
Gold beating
Gold beating
Paper making
Paper from the mulberry tree bark




Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Guanlan Artist in Residence



Going to GuanlanAssume that now you have read all the detailed information on the Guanlan Original Printmaking Base on the internet and are preparing to go.

If you are applying for more than one month, best you go to the Chinese Embassy or Consulate with your letter of invitation. If you apply through a travel agent you will just get the basic 30 day visa which applies to most countries. You can renew your visa in Hong Kong.

If you are not comfortable with humidity or monsoonal rains despite air-conditioning, you should choose the cooler months from October to March. December and January are definitely cold.

If you don't think you can eat Chinese food for 3 months, although it is well balanced with green vegetables and fruit and served in a spotless canteen, you need to re think your length of residency. A variety of good imported wine can be purchased at the local shops but they are expensive. Local beer is fine. Plenty of tea but take your own coffee and plunger if you are an addict. Every house and studio has a water bottle unit.

Language and communication can be difficult but not necessarily a problem. Director, Zhao Jiachun is a perfect host, good fun and enthusiastic who will try his hardest to fulfil artist's every wish. The technicians speak very little English or none and understand even less if English is not your mother tongue. But speaking directly and clearly and in short simple sentences, using images if necessary helps. Smart phones with translations can also be useful. Try to engage the head technician in your project and work out a production plan. But don't be disappointed if they show absolutely no interest, to them it's just another job. This is the factory aspect of China with an emphasis on editions. So far there has been very little interest in sharing and learning new ideas but hopefully in time this will change. This is not the case with the invited Chinese artists whom you will find eager and interesting along with the other nationalities.

Working on your project you need to find a balance and an understanding on what you do and what the technicians do and here I can really only speak for the etching workshop. Most artists have had 20 to 30 years experience in printing their editions whilst the technicians have had a fraction of that time. My advise is that you print your edition utilising the help of the technicians. The technicians will cut, polish and degrease plates, apply aquatints in the electric aquatint box and prepare paper all of which are an enormous help. The size of the edition (usually 30) can depend on how many prints you want after giving Guanlan their 8 prints. The copper, zinc, acids, blankets, photoetching and presses maybe different from what you have worked with so first take a good look at the studio facilities and what other artists are doing.


What you should bring are some ideas to get started, some gifts that represent your country and an open mind. Were my two months at Guanlan enjoyable and interesting? Absolutely. 


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Artist Diary

February 2011 / Geneva

The Portrait de l’artiste series which was exhibited at Galerie La Ferme in February reflects of my life in Europe whilst living in Geneva. My days at atelier GE Grave, the view of Lac Leman across from where I lived on rue de Lausanne; my red coat bought from a second hand shop in Paquis. It was the red coat I was wearing when I said goodbye to my son at Antwerp station. It was the red coat I wore in Paris when we celebrated my daughter’s 21st birthday. It was the red coat that kept me warm in Budapest when I walked along the banks of the Danube ankle deep in snow. In the pockets of my red coat I would find these memories: a Paris metro ticket, a tissue that had once been drenched in tears.



Portrait of the Artist in Paris, Exhibition in Geneva 2011, www.fermedelachapelle.ch

October 2010 / Serbia, Cyprus, Israel, Thailand and Burma

Belgrade Serbian artist Zoran Todovic, renowned for his works on paper, has made a series of imaginary flags based on former Yugoslavia before it was torn apart. The Centre for Graphic Arts and Visual Researches remains an important centre for print exhibitions. Chaos Gallery is looking very smart in its new location near the National Theatre. It is Belgrade’s most important commercial gallery. www.gallerychaos.com

Centre for Graphic Arts; Flags by Zoran Todovic; Zoran Todovic

Nicosia + Paphos Over the past two years I have visited Cyprus several times. The University of Sydney headed by Dr Craig Barker and the Department of Antiquities of the Republic of Cyprus have been excavating the Hellenistic-Roman theatre at Pathos since 1995. www.paphostheatre.com Also in Paphos are the mosaics in the Roman villa know as the House of Dionysos. Other worthwhile art foundations are the Pharos Arts Foundation www.thepharostrust.org and the beautifully converted old electricity house now the Pierides Museum of Contemporary Art, both in Nicosia. Efkides Papadopoulos is a printmaker whom I met at IMPACT 2009 in Bristol.

Nicosia Efkides Papadopoulos in his studio in Nicosia, and view of Nicosia.

Mosaics in Cyprus

Jerusalem Al-ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in the old city of Jerusalem promotes Palestinian artists and offers residencies to international artists. Mona Hatoun won the 2010 Käthe Kolwitz prize in Berlin. Each year in October the Foundation presents The Jerusalem Show with art venues located around the old city. This year’s theme was Exhaustion – one of the most dynamic shows I’ve seen in years. www.almamalfoundation.org

If you can tolerate checkpoints, the apartheid wall, the world’s best outdoor gallery is worth the visit.

Al-ma'mal Foundation

Apartheid Wall

Bangkok + Rangoon I lived in Bangkok for 3 years in the 1980s setting up my printmaking studio Inky Fingers Inc. During this time a military coup killed cameraman-journalist and friend Neil Davis. With the king’s failing health political instability has increased. But it still has charm if perhaps a tad kitsch. The once familiar streets of Yangon where I lived in the late 1980s were difficult to recognise since the devastation of cyclone Nargis. One of the young artists I knew well, Win Pe Myint has become a prominent painter with exhibitions in Hong Kong. www.asia-finearts.com

Bangkok old and new


Burma (Myanmar)

August + September 2010 / Switzerland Participated in a group drawing exhibition - Dessin act-art Halle Nord, Geneva. Tirage limité 2 – limited editions and artist’s books fair, Lausanne

Participant at Gallery Artraction, and Dessin act-art Halle Nord, Geneva.


Amartistes Tirages Limités, Marguerite Ryser;Tirage limité 2 – limited editions and artists' books fair, Lausanne

List of museums in Switzerland for printmaking and artists' books:

Martin Bodmer Foundation – Library and Museum, Geneva www.fondationbodmer.org

Jenish Museum, Vevey www.museejenisch.ch

Abby Library of Saint Gallen www.stifsbibliothek.ch

Gutenberg Museum, Fribourg www.gutenbergmuseum.ch

Basel Paper Museum www.papiermuseum.ch

Centre d’editions contemporaine, Geneva www.c-e-c.ch

July 2010 / Germany, Poland and Austria

Leipzig - Spinnerei, from cotton to culture. 120 years ago this red brick complex was one of the largest cotton-spinning mills in Europe. Note Käthe Kollwitz’s lithographs of the weavers.

In 1992 it started to be occupied by artists – several galleries and Boesner the IKEA of art supplies. Lubok www.lubok.de with an enormous selection of artist’s books and a Museum of Printmaking. www.spinnerei.de

Museum der bildenden Künste - Museum of Local Artists which includes Max Beckmann and Max Klinger who were born in Lipzig. www.mdbk.de

Spinnerei Art Complex Museum der Bildenden Künste

Chemnitz despites the scares of Soviet occupation has several excellent museums – Neue Sächsische Galerie, Museum für zeitgenössishe Knust dedicated to the graphic arts. www.neue-saechsische-galerie.de The major museum of art is in the town centre. A large collection of paintings by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff – an expressionist (Brücke / The Bridge) can be seen at the Gunzenhauser Museum Rudolf-Breitscheid Street is filled with art nouveau houses.

Halle is another former industrial city close to Leipzig. Halle 14 is a 5 story former cotton spinning mill which is now an independent art centre. www.halle14.org

Berlin German artist Gunter Demnig’s Stumbling Blocks can be seen in sidewalks in several European cites. The blocks are placed at the entrance of buildings from where persons were deported. On the brass plate is the name, year of birth and the fate, as well as the dates of deportation and death. In 1990, he marked in chalk the route taken by Cologne’s gypsies when they were deported in 1940. http://www.berlinischegalerie.de/index.php?id=46&L=1 Only fragments of the original Berlin wall are left but there is a remarkable amount of information documenting this bleak history which can be read in the streets close to Checkpoint Charlie. July also marked the 15th anniversary of Europe's largest massacre since World War II, the Srbrenica massacre where ethnic Serb troops attacked and killed some 8,000 Muslim men during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The Holocaust Memorial designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold contains 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid over almost 5 acre. According to Eisenman's statement, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. Potsdamer Platz- urban renewal by architectural giants Renzo Piano, Christoph Kohlbecker, Arata Isozaki, Steffen Lehmann, Hans Kollhoff, Lauber + Wöhr, José Rafael Moneo, Richard Rogers



16,000 shoes, each pair representing one of 8,372 victims of the Srbenica massacre; Berlin Wall


Holocaust Memorial and Stumbling Block in pavement

Lodz Almost in central Poland, Lodz was another big industrial centre that grew enormously wealthy on the production of textiles. The wealthy barons built glorious villas many of which are now museums. Book Art Museum www.book.art.pl Lodz is also an important city for cinema

Vienna Kunsthalle Street + Studio, Basquiat to Séripop with Australia video artists Shaun Gladwell. “Two extreme places within the system of art. The Street –quick, spontaneous, intuitive. The Studio-traditional domain, quiet, private.” Of note: Open Your Eyes and Repair by French Algerian artists Kader Attia

Hundertwasser House, Vienna by architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Hundertwasser House, Vienna by architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser

June 2010 / ArtBasel 41

The world’s most prestigious art fair and the biggest attraction was the large screen TV of the World Cup match – Switzerland against Spain.

Concentrating on Artist Books, Off Press and Limited Editions there was a notable shift back to simple technology. Many of the fanzines and risographs, quirky and fun, were available for just a couple of francs with numerous works by Raymond Pittibon.

Big Fag Press / Sydney www.bigfagpress.org

Made in Switzerland by FAG and salvaged in Sydney at a scrap metal auction for $50! The old offset proof press was rescued by a group of clever lads. This is an amazing story.

13-17 Riley Street, Woolloomooloo

Poligrafa / Barcelona www.edicionspoligrafa.com


Lightning Bolts for the Original 2010

Nathan Carter

Cut out and printed objects such as keys, coins and pieces of metal

Galerie Sabine Kunst / Munich www.sabineknust.co

Cry 2010

Jack Pierson

Archival pigment print with screenprint


Lelong Editions / Paris www.galerie-lelong.com

Sans Titre 2009

Jannis Kounellis

Newspaper and screenprint

Pace Prints / New York www.paceprints.com

Botanical Collage #1 2008

Jane Hammond

Monoprint, relief with collage and hand painting on prepared paper

Alan Cristea / London www.alancristea.com

As Time Goes By 2009

Howard Hodgkin

Sugar-lift aquatint printed using between 7 to 15 colours per panel with carborundum relief and hand painted acrylic on 5 sheets of Moulin de Gué paper

The Gallery Staff 1 2010

Julian Opie

A series of 5 screen prints on glass in frames designed by the artist