Splinter Contemporary Artists: photography

Saturday, 23 August 2014

Isabelle Kawai Vincent

Bachelor of Fine Art - Printmaking

Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary)
Visual artist working in a variety of mediums including relief printing, painting, drawing and photography

From memory, what was the first thing you made with your hands?

As a child I was drawing on everything. Toilet paper, newspapers, cereal packets, books, wrapping paper; anything I could find. Fortunately, my parents knew someone who worked in the Bendigo Advertiser so they managed to get boxes of off-cuts of butcher paper, which was a sanity saver for everyone. At primary school I had queues of students wanting me to draw images of Bambi for them, and I always had the job of drawing chalk images on the black board for events such as Easter and Christmas.

What are you making with your hands right now?

At this moment I’m working on a portrait of a friend. I’ve stretched raw cotton duck on a frame and not primed it. I use watered down acrylic paint to stain the canvas and produce a loose brush affect. I create the details using water based textas. I find that you can blend the colours with a stiff brush loaded with water if applied immediately after making a mark. So I need to work quickly. Also using textas on my paintings give a ‘drawing’ affect. I then use opaque paint for highlights and to create definition. The two images above are portrait studies for the final piece.

Why is the art of handmade is so important?

For me personally, art is my first language and I was born an artist. If I don’t make artwork I feel like my ‘mojo’ is missing and can’t live without it. I had put art making aside for several years while raising my children, which I didn’t mind as they were also very important to me. But now they are independent and living their own lives, being an successful artist is my main focus. So, my art making is quite a selfish endeavour.

Recently I met someone who bought an artwork from my Dying Swan series (above) which changed my attitude to my art making. This series is about the ‘space’ between life and death, inspired by my mother, my cat and the ballet, Swan Lake. It’s a ‘space’ where a life and death are at a crossroad and there is struggle to which way to go; return to the living or continue the transition to death. The ballet dancers, although appearing graceful and delicate, need to be physical and psychologically strong to perform successfully, therefore, became a metaphor for my theme.

I was fortunate to be able chat with the buyer and discovered that she had related to this artwork because she almost died and came back to life, therefore, personally experienced that ‘space’. “ I had to have it” were her very words. It was immensely rewarding for me that my artwork had such a meaningful experience for someone else. Therefore, emotionally and spiritually connecting with people is an extremely rewarding by-product of making artwork. It seems that art can express meanings that words cannot define.

All photographs courtesy of Isabelle Kawai Vincent
Isabelle can be contacted via Splinter Contemporary Artists
See more of Isabelle's work at Isabelle Kawai Vincent Artist Page

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Friday, 15 August 2014

Marcus Dowd

Painter, sculptor & photographer.

From memory what was the first thing you made with your hands?

I can't remember what the first thing I made was although I think it was som pottery that I created where I took a round pot and squashed it in the middle so it looked like a bone from above. I think I was about 13. It lasted for many years before being accidentally left outside in the rain and falling to pieces. It was nice to be able to return it to the earth though.

After that, I didn't do any pottery again for many years. The next one I remember doing was a totem pole in my early 20s. I was recovering from a bout of ill health and I poured a lot of my feelings into the little totem pole (having always felt some affinity with Native American spirituality). There was some question at the time whether it would survive firing given the design but it made it through unscathed. Twenty years later, that totem pole still stands on my shelf looking over me. I hope I never break it, it reminds me of the power of art to heal.

What are you making with your hands right now?

I have had an interest in photography for many years and continue to photograph my surroundings whenever I can. However, I am currently working on a painting project (painting having been something I've only taken up in the last twelve months). This project involves murky images of a cityscape but with the green man, the archetypal force of nature peeking out from behind a building. I have always felt a strong affinity with nature and the way indigenous people portrayed the forces of nature. This painting is to symbolise that no matter how we rip out trees and attempt to concrete over everything, nature can and will still come back. One only has to look at a city such as Pripyat in Ukraine (abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster) to see the truth of this. Pripyat now stands abandoned with trees coming up through buildings and grass growing over the concrete.

Why is the art of handmade so important?

I believe that handmade things portray far more emotion than machine made things could ever do. The artist can really put their soul into the object and create something that preserves their emotions, surviving sometimes many years after the death of the creator. When I look at things I have created, they take me back to how I was feeling when I created the object. Sometimes that takes me to a happy place, sometimes not so happy but just as significant as it symbolises my strength in overcoming adversity at the time.

All photographs courtesy of Marcus Dowd.
Marcus can be contacted via Splinter Contemporary Artists.

See more of Marcus's work at Splinter Contemporary Artists on Facebook.