New Australian Printmaking takes four of Australia's top contemporary artists – Patricia Piccinini, Megan Cope, Shaun Gladwell and Tim Maguire – and thrusts each creative into the world of printmaking.
The exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre (NGV Australia) features 68 prints created in the last four years as part of the Australian Print Workshop Artist Fellowship program. Piccinini, Cope, Gladwell and Maguire are already renowned for their work in other mediums, but the fellowship aimed to expand their practice into printmaking.
That is, the works extend on the themes the artists are known for, but as prints. For instance, New Australian Printmaking features two colour print series from Piccinini that showcase the artist's penchant for exploring nature, humanity and the uncanny. Gladwell's prints on the other hand continue his examination of street culture, as well as also featuring the artist's well-known skull imagery. Maguire's prints are an extension of his recent body of work, 'Dice Abstracts', while Cope has created two massive lithograph prints that showcase colonial-era geographic maps overlaid with Indigenous place names.
New Australian Printmaking opens May 13 and is free.