Mud and Ink is curated by Steven Giese.

Mud and Ink 2023

t’s a rare event when the printmakers of the Lismore region get together for a group exhibition. The 2022 flood made this even less likely as many studios, presses and galleries were demolished by floodwaters.

To celebrate the incredible diversity and talent of printmakers in this region, the Serpentine Gallery is hosting Mud and Ink. This show will display the work of over 15 artists who work in print disciplines: etching, relief print, monotype, screenprinting and cyanotype. This will be the first show of 2023 for the community gallery that is rapidly becoming the hub of visual arts in the town.

The mediums are diverse and so are the exhibitors. Visitors to the gallery will see established printmakers with national reputations such as Jenny Kitchener, Darren Bryant and Christine Porter. There will be artists who make skilled images in traditional genres such as Rhonda Armistead and Jimmy Willing. Two outstanding Bundjalung artists Eric Ferguson and Peter Faulkner will have their brilliant relief prints in the show as well. Lismore TAFE produced some outstanding emerging printmakers in 2022, Dallas Rae, Isaac Fazldeen and Sharla La, their images will be on display.

Mud and Ink will be the most significant show of printmaking held in Lismore for many years. It will open on Friday the 20th of January at 6pm. Works will be for sale and visitors are very welcome to attend.

Lismore Flood 2022 – Hung Out To Dry 3 by Jenny Kitchener, Monoprint on Rice Paper

Dean L. Heaton discussing his reduction wood cut titled Bohemian Redsody.

Bluehemian Rhapsody by Dean Leslie Heaton, Reduction Wood Cut.

Inundation By Beki Davis, Cyanotype and ink on Fabriano

SCFU, Lino cut by Dean Leslie Heaton

La Nina by Steve Giese, Linocut.

Sea Turtle Dreaming by Peter Faulkner, Lino print.

Director, Corinne Batt-Rawden, standing in front of Beki Davis's three cynotype works.

Lou Goggin (on ladder) supported by Steve Giese and Jane Hewetson with install of Mud and Ink with Penelope Sienna typing in artist statements.

After the Flood by Sophie Amelia, Digital Print.

Flood China IV: Blue and White Mug by Crhistine Porter, Etching, A1/10. 15 x 15cm.

Flood China by Christine Porter

One of the smallest stories of the Lismore floods, early 2022, was of the cleaning out of the (formerly flood free) storage units of Christine’s friend, Marie. In them books, vintage clothes, and eight decades of her life packed up for removal, all inundated: soaking wet, muddy, broken. It included sixty crates of domestic and collectible china that, once saved, needed to be washed, sorted and re-boxed. The beauty inherent in each piece became apparent in that process; the brittle fragility of the rescued china emerging from the darkness, standing in for the precious, precarious resilience of Lismore in its recovery.
A painting series, of individual pieces of the china, created in the midst of the ongoing recovery during 2022, was a way for Christine to process the experience. Early 2023 the town is not yet recovered. The resilience, by which our town is well known, seems more precarious. It’s tired: worn down by bureaucracy and grief. By continuing the Flood China imagery in a medium that celebrates multiples, an extra layer is implied. One of a shared, repeated experience, of ongoing trauma, and the importance of recognizing the beauty found in small episodes, that will make us whole again.

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