Tony Ameneiro "New Works", opened in Canberra at Impressions on Paper Gallery 26 April to close 20 May 2007 in conjunction with two exhibitions featured in the last issue of IMPRINT: Rona Green, Betwixt and Between and Rebecca Mayo Keystones.
Tony spent the best part of last year on two large studies of a cow skull, found within a disused dairy. The drawing; "Big Night Skull (de noche y de dia)" translated from Spanish – "By night and by day", 180 x 90cm was exhibited in the Dobell Drawing prize in 2006. The linocut; “Big Night Skull” a dark work acts as a foil for the painstakingly labour intensive drawing on the same scale. (This print went on to win the 2007 Fremantle Print Award).
The two skulls hang side by side for the first time and need a very large wall to be appreciated. The studies are part of a series of intricate works which represent place and materials; some were produced on animal skin. The works together, on this scale, act more holistically for the day and night sky. The eerie, crisp black, linocut recalls the feeling of an enormous John Beard monotype, and would display to its best opposing the exceptional, recent, eX de Medici hard ground etchings from the "United spectre" series. I joked at the opening to Tony that he could print the linoleum block on the ceiling or entranceway of a home thus creating an enchanted great hall, or a possible complement to a roof based John Olsen image of the sun.
One of the last sets of Tony’s beautiful three colour soft ground etchings of Gymea Lilies ("The Five Lilies Suite") are on display. The works are printed using three colored plates using Cyan, Magenta and Yellow inks.
"Underside Cow Skull CMY" 3 colour pencil drawing on Japanese Gampi tissue image size 50x28cm. Framed size 73x50cm.
The monotypes, which make up the bulk of the exhibition, satisfy my current professional obsession regarding the medium. The works are 40 x 54cm. and some are produced from numerous plates. In the most part they exemplify a traditional, colour, landscape monotype. They are intimate in size, and are produced with a painter's hand like a Degas or early Rupert Bunny monotype. Incorporating colour stolen from the brightest decorative Grace Cossington Smith yellow bathed room. Within the best, the richness of their colour transports the viewer from the gallery to the world within the paper window.
He adds to this traditional monotype by shifting the registrations of differing colours slightly, and captures that moment at dusk when the clouds are thick, black or red, and full with rain. Will the lights go out before the drops hit the ground? At times those casual drops are seen in the work. The numerous pressings of his monotypes gives the viewer an uneasy feeling as if this talented printmaker has registered incorrectly. The sparse silhouette of a figure in one cognate can be seen through its clothing, bathed in sunlight. The free opportunity of monotype may be his solution to the rigorous drawing work he performs.
The monotypes come from his current Park Edge (Field and Road Edge) series. These works in the series refer specifically to current battles with urban developers to save a 90 acre, green corridor adjoining his home between the towns of Mittagong and Bowral in Regional NSW. Metaphorically the parks edge is the boundary defining the European forest of folklore. It is the edge of civilisation where monsters are seen, inhabited by the wolf, and Baba Yaga. The work may depict the cusp of a decision, an event, or the scene before dark action.
Tony’s exhibited work is exquisite because he discards such a great deal of his production. Some of the monotypes that survive get pushed too far, or by chance the cognate or ghost has printed faintly, and he adds to the work, with oil colour, colour pencil or tracing paper, highlighting aspects.
In a recent hang of The Charles Sturt University collection I placed Tony’s work from a similar series opposing a James Gleeson 1970’s collage, and a group of existential Euan Macleod figures. The sfumato mayhem of the Gleeson set the scene, but it was the surrealist juxtapositions and sole dark landscape figures of Macleod’s that told tales to Tony’s works.
One of Tony’s mainly monochrome transfer prints hangs above the Directors desk at Impressions. The panoramic landscape beautifully incorporates both detailed flora depiction’s, and expressionistic line. He is part of a star-studded Australian lineage of artists in this medium. Works were produced in the 40’s with boot polish by enemy aliens in the internment camps of Hay and Tatura by artists such as Erwin Fabian, Hirschfield Mack and Bruno Simon. Sidney Nolan also produced transfer prints in his first exhibition in Melbourne on 11 June 1940, later cats, and owls within the landscape by Jon Molvig, and Clifton Pugh were outlined verso on paper over ink.
Thomas A. Middlemost, Art Curator, Charles Sturt University. Currently researching Australian monotypes.