Jacqueline Aust – Re placed

April 9 – May 9 2021

Accomplished NZ printmaker Jacqueline Aust recently moved to Kerikeri and we welcomed her with her first solo show at Wharepuke.  Jacqueline is well known in the NZ print community and has won many awards for her work including the Merit Award, New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards, 2018 and the Premier Prize, at the MAC National Printmaking Exhibition, First Impressions III, 2017. In 2020 she was a finalist in the Parkin Drawing Award.       

The theme of re placement is both the subject and process of this series.

For me a new series will often be underpinned by experiencing another place, in this instance Japan. Our visit to Japan in 2018 coincided with a typhoon and with the consequent requirement to repair and replace. Later we moved house from Auckland to Kerikeri during the early stages of COVID lockdowns. The effect of replacement began to have a more immediate impact on our lives and stimulated a series of works on this theme.

The works exhibited in Replaced continue my exploration of the relationship between autographic mark making and a response to place. Traditionally the process of printmaking involves a matrix, or plate, from which a number of works are printed. These works are essentially the same and are called an edition. My practice has been to create series of works using the same plate/s so that each work is unique yet has a clear visual connection to each other work in the series.

The print making process allows the placement and replacement of components that leave visual traces to tell the story. I make material decisions based on the subject of re placement so the aesthetics of the final work relates to the theme.