Studio Audit 2013 - A Collaborative Work with Emily Rumney

Emily Rumney & Steph Chalmers - Studio Audit 2013 (detail) - Mixed Media - 890 mm H x 1030mm W

Sampler of media from our studio, September 2013 - pen, pencil, graphite, felt tip, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, ink, pigment 

Emily Rumney & Steph Chalmers with Studio Audit 2013 at the opening of the NZPPA 2014

Emily and I made our first collaborative artwork last year and it was selected for the Waikato Society of Arts' annual New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award for 2014.

We decided to make the work as a way to re-engage with all the different materials we have available to us in the studio. It was also a response to having spent a LOT of time playing Blendoku. 

. . . 

“I tried in my selection to choose not only the entries that I considered to be outstanding, but works that illustrate the diverse styles and media I saw. As a result, the 2014 NZPPA exhibition is made up of everything from digital collage to oil paint, pinhole photography to ballpoint pen.

I am also intrigued by the theme of digital technologies and digitally-led lives that is reflected across these works, from a digital collage that calls to mind 19th century scientific engravings to an abstract painting inspired by social media interactions.”

 - 2014 Judge Courtney Johnston

Director of The Dowse Art Museum

The (very worthy) Winner 2014: 

Stephen Ellis - We Asked For Signs

Merit Award Winners:                    

Hannah Depree - Boys Club 

Jessica Peerless - After Kauri

You can see all of finalists here

Click here for a review by Peter Dornauf for EyeContact 

Sumi Ink and Graphite Media Study

Steph Chalmers - Sumi Ink and Graphite Media Study - 2013

Something Different

Fig. 1 - Plywood, paper, wood veneer, thread, ink, acrylic, pencil - approx 600 x 400 mm - Steph Chalmers - 2013

Fig. 2 & Fig. 1 - Plywood, paper, wood veneer, thread, ink, acrylic, pencil, tacks - Steph Chalmers - 2013

These works were made for a group exhibition - Opening this Friday night:

A Work Remembering Hiroshima

Hibakusha/Survivor - Indian Ink Painting 2010

There is an earlier, one-off drypoint version of this composition. I did a lot of post-print painting on it, and was really proud of the finished piece. I made the background a deep blood-red, it had the Genbaku Dome (the Hiroshima Peace Memorial) and a bare tree, faintly in the background. Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb, is fleeing the scene, and I embossed a circle in the centre referencing the Japanese flag. Another embossing of a 1945 NZ coin at the bottom acknowledged the aid given by the NZ J-Force, post war. I wasn't expecting the original to sell, so didn't bother to take photos. Alas, it sold. I missed it, so I made this! 

Moral of the story: Take photos!