Artist printmaker Lisa Pullen resides in Brisbane & has been a long standing IPSB member. Here she discusses her influences & direction in her work. Image left L.Pullen"Touching Darkness"My interest in printmaking began in 1977-78 during my studies at RMIT Melbourne.
The printmaking studio was a dynamic and industrious place. I happened to meet George Baldessin briefly during those first few months in 1977. It was that same year that he had his fatal car accident. I remember him as a serious and enigmatic man. He created an atmosphere within the studio
which was one of purpose and passion. It was contagious to all.
My lecturer / tutor was Greg Moncrief, a young man who had a good sense of humour and an enthusiastic approach to instructing in the ways and processes of printmaking. His own creative artwork was screenprinting. His images were colourful and he used ancient Egyptian symbols.
At that time the ink was oil based with a turps cleanup. That was not for me. I enjoyed using zinc plates for etching, (they were relatively cheap in those days), and stumbled my way into linocuts and printmaking. One of my first linocuts was about a recent memory of a striped bench seat and a seagull perched on the top runner at the St Kilda promenade near Luna Park. I cut out three separate lino blocks, which were the same size and somehow printed them consecutively. Slightly off registration but otherwise happy with this adventurous attempt of printmaking, I put an edition of three on the drying rack. Greg chose one print with those of other first year students and pinned them up on the corkboard outside the studio. I was quite chuffed about it. Image below "She Bounces Me" L.Pullen Ink & Gouache
I have evolving influences in my visual artwork. During my high school years I visited The National Gallery Of Victoria and saw Greek 'Attic' style ceramic vessels depicting women doing ceremonial or household tasks. The thin black lines of the figures and faces,I thought, were a gentle and graceful way of expression. I practiced drawing the simple but intuitively styled figures in grey lead pencil.
I also soon emersed myself in the ink drawings of Aubrey Beardsley and became aware of Japanese prints. I read the flourishing and moving
stories and poetry of Oscar Wilde then became absorbed in the artwork of the Symbolist Movement. The painting and prints of Fernand Khnopff,
Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon were like magic to me. Expressionist woodcuts and paintings also captivated me. I was reading stories by Hermann Hesse and delving into books with black and white stills from early French, Russian and German cinema and early social comment photography.
As a young adult in the 1970's I became involved in the antique scene in Melbourne and saw beautiful Art Nouveau and Art Deco furniture, early Lalique vases, and bronze and ivory statues, posters circa turn of the twentieth century, French artglass and Matisse lithographs. Early Australian pottery and furniture became very collectable and artists such as Peter Tully were making iconic Australing jewellry. It was a wow time ! That phase of my life influenced my sense of how beauty and style could be represented.
Printmaking is an extention of drawing for me. Whether using ink and brush, pencil, calligraphic pen or smudges of white gouache, they are to be used as mark making, expressing fluidity, intensity, simplicity or sublimated anger. It is a way to remember and express my past experiences. Linocut preparation and carving soothes my mind. What other reason can I give to why I like using lino as my major printing medium? Maybe the fact that I lived behind a lino shop as a child in the 1960's in relative poverty. Maybe making the prints is a way of readjusting the memories of that time to something more positive.
My interest and use of painting to express ideas about memory and feeling are currently absorbing much of my time. It is interesting to me that I find no barrier or ethical dilemma in using Printmaking,(lino), or painting to express ideas. The basis for both mediums, for me, is drawing and that is the genesis of my thought or emotion.
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| Lisa Pullen, What You Will |
I would like to develop a feeling of empathy for beings in my creative output. I would like the viewer to feel the air that envelopes the characters and stories I try to show. History, memories, exotic and rumbling scenarios are my aim. I look towards the past evidence of the history of injustice, prejudice, and the fuller meanings in the short life we have here. I hope to relay these through the use of old photographs, paintings and writings, reinterpreted, which are then juxtaposed within the Australian diaspora.
Visit Lisa's Website & view her CV and galleries of her work . We also listed Lisa & Gwenn Taskers joint exhibition on our events page.
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| Lisa Pullen River Rouge |
