'Making home 2 (Hill End)' ©2013. Nicola Moss. Acrylic, natural ochre, charcoal frottage, rust stain, hand cut papers.
I had a wonderful time at my exhibition opening on Friday night, speaking with many friends and guests who have seen my work develop over many years. Thanks so much to everyone who came along, it was great to see you there.
Today I was looking through my archived artworks for some collages I made twenty years ago. I am facilitating a collage workshop at Redland Art Gallery later this month and I thought they could be an interesting reference. Well I found them and of course a whole lot of other pieces I haven't looked at in a long time. So I thought I would share some of what I came across with you and take a little bit of a look at some of the stages of development in my work.
Nothing happens overnight as you know, so the first piece below is a paper cut from 1984, my high school fine art days, eeek! That's almost 30 years.
'untitled' ©1984. Nicola Moss. Hand cut paper.
'The Garden' ©1999. Nicola Moss. Collagraph chine-colle.
Between 1997 and 2001 I studied part time at the Brisbane Institute of Art, majoring in printmaking and painting. I absolutely loved the printmaking medium, in particular collagraphs. Most of these were made with layers of hand cut paper stencils glued onto board. I didn't do a lot of editioning in the traditional sense of printmaking. Many of the works developed as monoprints, each unique and at times printed on hand woven paper supports, such as the work pictured below. This individual quality of each print held true for me, just as each plant and animal is an individual life.
I also began working with silhouettes and ideas of recognising species by their form. For me silhouette is one of the key ways that I identify and recognise various species of fauna and flora.
'Choko' ©2000. Nicola Moss. Collagraph monoprint on woven papers.
In 2005 I began work on the theme of ecology, initially looking at the microcosm of life in my own garden. I incorporated several aspects of my printmaking studies into my paintings. Developing textural layered background surfaces on which I could overlay tonal silhouettes that featured forms of plant and animal. Layering became an important element in the process of my work. Landscapes are densely layered, I wanted to capture a sense of the interwoven layers of life that make up ecologies. This is still a very strong component of my work today.
'Grass Dwellers' below, features a motif of snake skin and a small fungi.
'Grass Dwellers' ©2006. Nicola Moss. Acrylic and pigmented ink on canvas.
'Layers of life collection' (detail) ©2007. Nicola Moss. Acrylic and pigmented ink on canvas. Mater Hospital Brisbane collection.
In 2009 I was fortunate to have a one year artist residency at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt.Coot-tha. I focused on the Australian Plant Communities area of the gardens, working outdoors on site throughout the year. I chose to work on paper during the residency as there was no studio space available at the gardens and paper provided a very portable and practical medium. I returned to cutting silhouette forms of plant species. This time the paper cuts were artworks in themselves rather than stencils to be used for printmaking. The medium was ideal for conveying my ideas of unique identity and identifying species by the shape/silhouette of their form and leaves. I developed a series featuring members of the Proteaceae family, layering branch and leaf forms of various species. I began this blog to keep a record of my residency at the Botanic Gardens, it's all there in the archives if you feel like having a look.
'Family traits - Proteacea 6' ©2010. Nicola Moss. Acrylic, hand cut papers.
There have been many, many more works along the way, but I found it interesting to see connections throughout these works. Hope you enjoy the look back as much as I have.