Print Matters: Getting the message across

A new exhibition profiling the powerful medium of printmaking opens at the Mangawhai Artists Gallery on Friday October 8.

Printmaking is an ancient craft that evolved from sooty handprints on cave walls, to wood cut with origins in China and wood block printing in Japan, to the modern-day print that continues to develop as a craft and medium.

Often used to express political or protest themes, printmaking in its many forms is a valuable communicator in our lives today.

In Print Matters, three printmakers demonstrate through their different styles and approaches how this versatile craft can be used to ‘get the message across.

Wendy Clifford uses collagraphs, a method of collage of previously hand printed material, as her form of print making.

“Most hand printing processes are worked in reverse, where a negative becomes a positive by pressing the image onto any surface – paper, fabric, etc. For this exhibition, I have taken the idea of the positive and the negative as my theme,” says Wendy.

Rosina Kamphuis uses solar plate etchings, monoprints and text to make her statement.

“Eleven years ago a second explosion in the Pike River mine on our West Coast pronounced 29 miners dead,” reflects Rosina. “Our Greymouth community reeled as they lost all hope. The nation was in mourning and lives were forever changed.”

At the time, Rosina was a teacher and recalls how the school community responded.

“Our students created bookmarks for each of the families, depicting the thoughts and emotions each student experienced as their families watched the daily news and read the newspapers. I decided then to create an image to show the Greymouth community that their men, and they themselves, would not be forgotten. I also wanted to remind our own communities that, as time passes and other tragedies occur, it's still okay to look back on living memories and ask 'Are you okay?'”

Rosina’s work honours the 29 and their families.

Nicola Everett uses woodcuts, collagraphic and embossed prints for her work in the exhibition. She has drawn from her local environment – and the strengths and changes within it – to create her images. There are three distinct sections to her work all dealing with the effect humans have on their environment.

“In ‘Welcome and Warning’, I have used images of New Zealand lighthouses,” says Nicola. “These lighthouses are positioned in the land/seascape almost as aliens. I was working on these particular works during lockdown and there is a clear indication of this in the titles: ‘We are all in this together’ and ‘Coffee Bubble’.”

The second group of works, the largest, deals with strength, diversity and preservation in the way people use plants. In the third group Nicola uses prints taken from the felled Norfolk pines.

n Print Matters is open daily at the Mangawhai Artists Gallery, 45 Moir St, Mangawhai from 10am Friday Oct 8 through to midday Wednesday Oct 20 2021.

Wendy Clifford’s exhibition work has a ‘positive and negative’ theme. PHOTOS/ALL SUPPLIED

Those lost in the Pike River mine are the subject of works by Rosina Kamphuis.

Nicola Everett will show three distinct subjects in the exhibition.