Rhizoming: Language of print and place
Jan Hogan 16 May – 6 July 2019 Rhizoming: Language of Print and Place aims to explore the entanglement of nature, place and culture through a woodcut installation and accompanying offshoots based on artists books and objects. The works respond to the patterns and rhythms of a suburban beach on the Derwent River in Hobart. The exhibition aims to creatively explore, through printmaking and multiples, Deleuze’s theory that rhizomes pertain to a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable and has multiple entryways and exits with its own lines of flight.
Jan Hogan
16 May – 6 July 2019
Rhizoming: Language of Print and Place aims to explore the entanglement of nature, place and culture through a woodcut installation and accompanying offshoots based on artists books and objects.
The works respond to the patterns and rhythms of a suburban beach on the Derwent River in Hobart. The exhibition aims to creatively explore, through printmaking and multiples, Deleuze’s theory that rhizomes pertain to a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable and has multiple entryways and exits with its own lines of flight.
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RHIZOMING<br />
LANGUAGE OF PRINT AND PLACE<br />
Craft ACT Craft + Design Centre<br />
16 MAY – 6 JULY 2019
Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre is supported by the<br />
ACT Government, the Visual Arts <strong>and</strong> Craft Strategy –<br />
an initiative <strong>of</strong> the Australian State <strong>and</strong> Territory Governments,<br />
<strong>and</strong> the Australia Council for the Arts – the<br />
Australian Government’s arts funding <strong>and</strong> advisory<br />
body.<br />
CRAFT ACT CRAFT + DESIGN CENTRE<br />
Tues–Fri 10am–5pm<br />
Saturdays 12–4pm<br />
Level 1, North Building, 180 London<br />
Circuit,<br />
Canberra ACT Australia<br />
+61 2 6262 9333<br />
www.craftact.org.au<br />
This project was assisted through Arts<br />
Tasmania by the Minister for the Arts <strong>and</strong><br />
by the University <strong>of</strong> Tasmania.<br />
Front Cover: Rocks Entanglement (detail), 2019, woodblock<br />
<strong>print</strong> on kozo <strong>and</strong> woodblock matrix.<br />
Back Cover: Photo: 5 Foot Photography.
Artist Statement<br />
Jan Hogan<br />
<strong>Rhizoming</strong> is about my slow immersion in Hinsby Beach on the Derwent Estuary as I<br />
locate myself in my new home. I walk <strong>and</strong> swim in this space, exploring the rocks <strong>and</strong><br />
caves, the tidal shifts <strong>and</strong> seasonal changes. The concept <strong>of</strong> rhizoming assists me in<br />
locating myself <strong>and</strong> my practice in new <strong>place</strong>s, accepting that I am an outsider but<br />
slowly allowing the new environment to weave into my way <strong>of</strong> being in the world. My<br />
art practice is my way <strong>of</strong> learning <strong>and</strong> responding to <strong>place</strong>. As a settler Australian I am<br />
like a rhizome, a shoot that breaks <strong>of</strong>f <strong>and</strong> adapts to new environments, sending out<br />
tendrils to ground myself in a location. I start with sketches <strong>and</strong> drawings, immersing<br />
paper into the water to see how this environment changes the patterns <strong>and</strong> marks,<br />
allowing the matter <strong>of</strong> the world to reveal the meaning <strong>of</strong> <strong>place</strong>. It is a slow process,<br />
time is required to allow <strong>place</strong> to seep in, past the beauty <strong>and</strong> spectacle <strong>and</strong> into<br />
resonance.<br />
The woodcuts aim to find a language to enable negotiations between the many agents<br />
committed to, <strong>and</strong> structuring, a <strong>place</strong>. This language is formed by materials <strong>and</strong><br />
forces <strong>and</strong> effects. Patterns are made that we can interpret <strong>and</strong> respond to in order to<br />
break away from the western tradition <strong>of</strong> binary logic to a more natural system. The<br />
philosopher Deleuze posits in his rhizome theory that it constantly makes connections<br />
between systems, from natural formations to social struggles to organisations <strong>of</strong><br />
power. A rhizome model allows for travel in every direction rather than in a linear<br />
fashion, as it can move in all directions <strong>and</strong> dimensions. It is about performance,<br />
the performance <strong>of</strong> the mark, <strong>and</strong> the performance <strong>of</strong> forming identity, a constantly<br />
shifting field <strong>of</strong> negotiations. The rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced,<br />
constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable <strong>and</strong><br />
has multiple entryways <strong>and</strong> exits with its own lines <strong>of</strong> flight. This theory assists my<br />
practice as a form <strong>of</strong> speculative way finding to tread a sensitive path on this earth.<br />
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Rocks Entanglement, 2019, woodblock <strong>print</strong> on<br />
kozo <strong>and</strong> woodblock matrix.
Slow Looking<br />
catalogue essay: Anne Brennan<br />
The installation <strong>of</strong> <strong>print</strong>s <strong>and</strong> related<br />
objects in <strong>Rhizoming</strong> is a trace or<br />
record <strong>of</strong> the artist’s open-ended<br />
relationship with her site, a suburban<br />
Hobart beach, <strong>and</strong> her materials. She<br />
spends time observing what the site<br />
is doing, <strong>and</strong> how time operates on<br />
it through the movements <strong>of</strong> water<br />
<strong>and</strong> light upon its surfaces. Her work<br />
does not depend on mastery, either<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>place</strong> itself or the materials she<br />
uses. Instead, she watches what the<br />
materials want to do, sometimes giving<br />
up even more control by surrendering<br />
her materials to the action <strong>of</strong> the site<br />
itself, laying out paper on the ground<br />
<strong>and</strong> allowing it to absorb the stains <strong>and</strong><br />
marks <strong>of</strong> earth <strong>and</strong> weather. Through<br />
this process, she comes to underst<strong>and</strong><br />
the patterns <strong>of</strong> her site.<br />
The work, which explores the<br />
relationship between her swimming<br />
<strong>and</strong> the rocks below the water’s<br />
surface, requires a special kind <strong>of</strong> slow,<br />
embodied looking to grasp hold <strong>of</strong><br />
its enormous, reiterated immersive<br />
program <strong>of</strong> patterning. It encourages<br />
you to move through it, echoing the<br />
physical journey <strong>of</strong> the artist across<br />
her beach, picking your way around<br />
<strong>and</strong> across the woodcut matrix that is<br />
mirrored in the composite woodblock<br />
<strong>print</strong> upon the wall <strong>of</strong> the gallery. The<br />
slow investment <strong>of</strong> time spent with this<br />
work, moving around <strong>and</strong> immersing<br />
yourself in the installation, twisting<br />
<strong>and</strong> turning with the ‘artists books’<br />
that are three-dimensional drawings in<br />
space, closes the circle between you,<br />
the artist, her materials <strong>and</strong> her site<br />
<strong>and</strong> mirrors the way in which she has<br />
slowed down her own time to match<br />
the temporal pulse <strong>of</strong> light, l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />
water as it acts upon the paper.<br />
Anne Brennan<br />
Honorary Visiting Fellow<br />
ANU School <strong>of</strong> Art <strong>and</strong> Design, Centre<br />
for Art History <strong>and</strong> Art Theory<br />
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Photo: 5 Foot Photography
Detail <strong>of</strong> Rocks Entanglement, 2019,<br />
woodblock <strong>print</strong> on kozo <strong>and</strong> woodblock<br />
matrix. Photo: supplied by the artist.
Photo: 5 Foot Photography<br />
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Biography<br />
Jan Hogan is a mid-career artist <strong>and</strong><br />
academic specializing in notions <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>place</strong>; interweaving material traces <strong>and</strong><br />
memory held in natural <strong>and</strong> cultural<br />
sites. Through relocating around<br />
many sites in Australia, including<br />
remote areas such as Kununurra<strong>and</strong><br />
Uluru, Jan has become interested in<br />
how l<strong>and</strong>scapes have agency in the<br />
development <strong>of</strong> natural <strong>and</strong> cultural<br />
systems. Through her relocations Jan<br />
has set up a site-responsive practice<br />
that involves immersion in long term<br />
drawing projects that accumulate<br />
knowledge, marks <strong>and</strong> detritus that<br />
gradually seep into her unconscious.<br />
Her current location on the Derwent<br />
River in Hobart has involved a new<br />
underst<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>of</strong> the behavior <strong>of</strong><br />
freshwater <strong>and</strong> saltwater on ecologies<br />
10<br />
including the cultural materials <strong>of</strong> her<br />
art practice. The concept <strong>of</strong> rhizoming<br />
has accompanied her journeys<br />
around Australia that accepts her<br />
drifting status as a settler but allows<br />
a focus on environmental <strong>and</strong> social<br />
justice. <strong>Rhizoming</strong> provides a creative<br />
mapping that retains traces <strong>of</strong> <strong>place</strong>s<br />
<strong>and</strong> people encountered over time as<br />
her art practice settles <strong>and</strong> matures<br />
in each site. Her discipline <strong>and</strong> craft<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>print</strong>making has become focused<br />
on large-scale woodcuts that are<br />
developed after the initial drawing<br />
research. Like a rhizome, the woodcuts<br />
behave in response to environmental<br />
conditions, <strong>and</strong> are developed from<br />
the patterns <strong>and</strong> energies discovered<br />
over time.<br />
Photo: 5 Foot Photography
List <strong>of</strong> works<br />
1 Rock caress ii, 2019<br />
woodblock <strong>print</strong> on Kozo <strong>and</strong><br />
woodblock matrix<br />
$5,000 unique state<br />
2 Rocks Entanglement, 2019<br />
woodblock <strong>print</strong> on Kozo <strong>and</strong><br />
woodblock matrix<br />
$5,000 unique state<br />
3 Wayfinders, 2019<br />
artist book<br />
$200 large, $120 small<br />
4 Submersion, 2019<br />
Woodblock matrix<br />
NFS<br />
5 Rock Rhizome I, 2019<br />
Woodblock <strong>print</strong> on Kozo<br />
$500<br />
6 Rock Rhizome II, 2019<br />
Woodblock <strong>print</strong> on Kozo<br />
$500<br />
Prints 5 <strong>and</strong> 6: Edition <strong>of</strong> 5 each,<br />
sold in consecutive edition order.<br />
$500 each.<br />
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