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Lea Kannar

Memories of Landscape

An exhibition of printmaking, exploring our impact on the landscape

Fitzroy Library Exhibition Space, 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy

23 April - 21 June 2010

An exhibition of printmaking, exploring our impact on the landscape.

In her exhibition of 19 works, Lea sought to explore the land in painting and printmaking, and the impact we as a species have made on it. The works also showed a deep love of the visual journey, and of Australian landscapes and their colours.

She did not say in her artist’s statement just where her visual journeys took her, however there were several landscapes which reminded me of parts of the Northern Territory. Dry Land (memories), acrylic on canvas on wood, was one of s series of small aerial views of warm red-orange earth dotted with olive drab trees or bushes, of the type I had much admired on a trip from Alice Springs to Uluru some years ago. In Forgotten Falls, acrylic on canvas, the deep orange rock formations were rounded by countless centuries of water flow, but no water to be seen. It looked like that part of the base of Ularu where water flows during the wet season, or it could have been somewhere else, where water had not flowed for a very long time. This was a striking work in content and appearance, the rock face standing out against a hard blue sky.

Menindie Dry Lake in NSW used to be an “inland oasis”, but dried up in 2002 due to human and natural interventions. In this semi abstract aerial view of the lake bed, the trees were dots, casting shadows against the red earth and the round, pale sandy area with its dark centre.


Menindie Dry Lake, acrylic on canvas, 106 x 106cm, 2007

Imprints on the Landscape, a mixed media collage of linocuts and drypoint etching, told a story of human interventions and alterations to the landscape in abstract images and patterns, with a line drawing of a tractor in black paint. In Remember, a silkscreen and hand painted collograph, pale green gum leaves stood out against an enigmatic deep red printed abstract form. Could this be a place where trees once grew?

Lea also included some beautifully hand made and bound artist’s books and journals, their hand made paper and card covers sealed with a glossy protective finish - perfect for taking on the visual journey. In Book A5 and Artist Journal A4, Lea had also incorporated collage into the covers. Memories of Landscapes was a travelling artist’s book in progress. Started in 2008, it contained two concertina pull-out sections of little works in chin colle, drypoint etchings, linocuts and hand painting.

I enjoyed these sensitive and beautiful works.

Review by Cressida Fox


 

Imprints on the Landscape, mixed media, 93 x 82cm, 2009

 

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