Paynter Gallery Exhibition Review: INGRAINED Smith + Cannon

by Madeleine Snow on May 10, 2011

The exhibition INGRAINED: Smith + Cannon currently running at the John Paynter Gallery on Hunter St shows prints and sculptures by two artists unafraid of the carpenter’s tools. United by being the daughters of carpenters they are also two friends, two colleagues, two recent graduates of the Newcastle Art School Hunter TAFE, two women who have worked in the field of design before turning their attention to art, and most importantly two artists working in wood. Alison Smith works in printmaking inspired by the city & Stevie Cannon creates sculptures inspired by the bush.

For both the making process, the actual length of time it takes to create the works, is literally an idea present within the work, in Smith’s case urban expansion where buildings rise and fall in & in Cannon’s the ever changing natural environment. Smith’s prints are sketched and designed, the woodcuts carved and sculpted, before being printed, and each layer of ink can take up to a week to dry. Cannon explores the bush, gathers materials, builds and assembles, considers form and space developing the sculptures right up to installation point.

Cannon sights Ikebana as one of her influences, an art form dependent on balance, harmony, order. She attempts to capture her experience of the bush, bleeding resin from trees, a branch suspended precariously. Much like Ikebana each material in her work is purposeful and has a voice, the glue is dripping visibly defying gravity or she has used copper screws (rather than nails) for their craft finish and traditional use in boat building. She pushes her material, twisting the wood and balancing the elements almost to breaking point. In her work Windshear, an aviation term, she plays with the unnerving feeling of flying through turbulence -  the work is high on the wall, chaos and control is close to the surface.

Smith is interested in architecture and the urban landscape amidst urban expansion and development. She depicts that space between buildings when you are surrounded in the city. The image is a little like scaffolding - solid, grid like and ephemeral only lasting the length of a build, and something which Smith was drawn to. Her titles and colours have popular culture references - the hue comes from the season’s fashion palette and the titles from the real estate section of the newspaper.

For both artists their connection is the material quality of the wood. In Smith’s prints the grain is evident as a texture, pattern on the surface and a subject within the work. In Cannon’s she makes wood appear as paper or rock, enjoying the grain in each piece. In both, this celebration of material is not unlike the late Rosalie Gascoigne, an Australian artist who also explored the material quality of the landscape, was inspired by Ikebana, and created layered jigsaw-like assemblages.

To see these amazing art works yourself check out the exhibition, INGRAINED: Smith + Cannon, which runs until 15 May 2011 at Newcastle’s Lock-up Cultural Centre, John Paynter Gallery at 90 Hunter street Newcastle. Call on (02) 4925 2265, email or check out their website for more.