Beauty, love, violence and sacrifice play a part
Katie Clemson: Gone Fishing - Beaver Galleries, 81 Denison St, Deakin
By Sasha Grishin
(Canberra Times, May 2002)
While it is standard wisdom to say that in the 21st century, within the conventions of post-modernism the tyranny of nationality is eroded, nevertheless Katie Clemson is an artist caught between two countries.
Born in rural NSW, she has spent much of her life in England and travelling with her diplomat husband.
Now she has finally returned to Australia and has settled in Western Australia.
This in part explains why such an accomplished printmaker is relatively little known in her own country and also provides us with a clue to some of the imagery which she employs in this exhibition.
Clemson's husband inherited from his father a collection of Scottish salmon flies objects of considerable intricate beauty, requiring great skill to produce and adhering to a most complex and ancient system of rules and governed by its own laws of logic.
These attractive lures, in their function, are also intended as a death trap, so a dimension of femme fatale also creeps into the imagery.
Clemson has devised a peculiar technical resolution for this series of work.
The images of the salmon flies have been realised as a series of linocuts, of differing dimensions, which have then been printed on quite a fine paper which then has been applied through chine colle on to a larger sheet of textured paper.
Then the images have been manipulated with ink, watercolour and pastel.
One of the most attractive features of the work lies in the blending of the two layers of paper, visually creating a sort of splash on the surface of paper a little epicentre where the image of the fishing fly enters into the broader expanse of water.
It is like the meeting of two forms of visualisation one a very exacting, intricate and detailed one, worked out with miniaturistic precision, the other, emotive, expressive and splashing in all directions.
One could suggest that Clemson's meaning resides within that seam between these two systems.
If we look at her work from this perspective, then it does become something of a diary of a rather personal journey, one where beauty, love, violence and sacrifice all play a part.
The exhibition is also punctuated by a number of her very accomplished colour relief prints such as Green reeds and Forest stream..
This is Clemson's second solo exhibition at this gallery.
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