“the earth will expose the blood shed on it and conceal the murdered no longer”
2019, artists book, codex,
a triptych of single segment folios between plywood covers, colour reduction woodblocks and letterpress on Awagami Kozo, a variable edition of 3 artists books
52 x 68 cm (open)
This artists book is the outcome of a month-long artist in residence Mosely was awarded in 2017 and then undertook at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) in November 2018. The residency, titled “the Packsaddle Residency”, provided access to the letterpress facilities in NERAM’s Museum of Printing. The project undertaken during the residency was to integrate letterpress into the artists printmaking and artists book practice within the context of “the haptic”. Continuing his longstanding strategy to employ the bush as a starting point for a project, ie an environment that exemplifies Gilles Deleuze and Felix Gutarri’s “haptic smooth space” and a visual device the public can relate to, Mosely made drawings from Ben Lomond just north of Armidale. The resolution of the project resulted in a triptych of prints and this edition of three unique artists books, both produced through colour reduction woodblock prints and letterpress.
The two studio outcomes contrast postcolonial tensions that blanket the region. The use of Scottish place names to identify features in the new england terrain drew out Mosely’s own Scottish heritage. These names echo the brutal Scottish highlands clearances in the pursuit of land that drove many settlers to this new england. Secondly, conversations with New England residents then raised histories of the brutal clearances of this new england - killings of the indigenous “Nganyaywana” people - in the pursuit of the fertile tablelands in the early1800’s. Mosely found himself confronted with a history of trauma and of perpetrating trauma. These traumas together with the dual history of letterpress printing used to formalise the bleaching of history and used to exposing the stain of violence, shaped Mosely’s two studio outputs of the residency.
“on a windy day towards ben lomond in the new england tablelands”
a print triptych (unique copy) produced in conjunction with the artists books, 2018
2018, colour reduction woodblocks prints and letterpress on Awagami Kozo, 300 x 64 cm, variable edition of 3
reception;
collections;
New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, Australia - the artists book & the print triptych
exhibitions:
the Residents, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW, 2019