Title

John Nixon – printmaker.

Author

Boon, Lizzie.

Source

Prints, printmaking and philanthropy: A symposium celebrating 50 years of The Harold Wright and The Sarah and William Holmes Scholarships. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 30 September - 2 October 2019.

Publication date

29 September 2019

Type

Conference paper

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

John Nixon – printmaker. Lizzie Boon, Artist and Independent writer. John Nixon engages a multiplicity of mediums, including painting, drawing, photography, collage, and music. This paper surveys one other major component – printmaking. From the early woodblock prints on various ephemera made at Art Projects, to an ongoing output of screenprints and relief prints made with master printmaker Trent Walter, Nixon resolutely works with an allegiance to early Modernism. From such adherence comes the constructive study of form and colour, while also embracing serendipitous site specificity and roaming collaboration, attesting for the flux between art and life. Objects– ephemeral or material – are collected, collated and translated by Nixon and often become directly implicit in the printmaking process, where an ‘all-in’ and no waste methodology plays out.

Considered through the lens of the archiving process, I adopt a framework in keeping with Nixon’s programme of making; I meander in order to organise the many compartments, sets, drawers, containers, and editions. Drawing on conversations with Nixon, the continual egalitarian to and fro between mediums is referenced as the ‘oxygen’ to the circulatory ecology of his practice. In considering a selection of unique prints, print montages, and ephemera, an expanded practice of printmaking from the 1970s and ongoing can be identified. I position his work beyond Modernist retrograde or formalist enquiry, but rather both an offering and referencing within the continual flow of art making at large. [Conference Program]

Last Updated

16 Jan 2024