Output details

Between the Hour and the Age. 20 miniature oil paintings on metal plate and 20 miniature photomontages which develop models for the visualization of memorial trace in response to the heritage site of Hill End.

Hill End, NSW, Australia, gold-rush town (1850s) and artist's enclave (1950s), was the focus of research that developed new forms of miniature painting and photomontage to model the memorial trace of historical architectural remains. Hill End is significant for its prime examples of gold-rush architecture and as the site for the production of paintings by key Australian modernists that radically shifted Australian painting between 1955-65.

The research shifts the emphasis on absence of Jones' Trace-Retrace (2006) and Erasure (2007) to material remains. Within a field defined by works such as From the Freud Museum (Hiller, Tate) the research distinguishes itself by its correlation of miniature scale, media and thematic focus and its allusion to forms of small-scale recollection such as interpretive panels, souvenir postcards and early photographic plates. Minutely-scaled, shaped, metal supports were used for artworks derived from site study of disintegrating vernacular architecture (paintings), and the colonial era interior of a traditional 1850s cottage which bears the direct imprint of the Hill End artists of the 1950s (photomontages).

The project was completed during an intensive Hill End artist residency (26.6.11-28.7.2012): an open international competition supported by Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG), Arts NSW, NSW DoE, Essential Energy and Bathurst Regional Council. Disseminated by: two solo exhibitions (BRAG, [2,722 visitors] and Jean Ballette Gallery, Hill End, 2013); presentation of 8 works, Papirbredden, Drammen, Norway (2013); shortlisting of Apparition for Marmite Painting Prize IV (5-venue UK tour, catalogue ISBN978-905659-10-4); residency presentations to Hill End visitors and professional peers; BRAG floor-talk (25.1.13) and webtext; public talk, Marmite Painting Prize (14.12.2012). Documentation included in Unmonumental (Pub. Northern Print, text by Dorsett (UNN) ISBN 978-0-9555846-8-8) and provided as a downloadable paper at www.academia.edu. Six works entered BRAG's historic Hill End collection that includes works by internationally renowned figures of Australian painting: Boyd, Drysdale, Whiteley.