Materials and Production Methods

Rosalie Gascoigne’s Earth (1999)

Rosalie Gascoigne’s Earth (1999) was part of the last collection she made before she passed away. In Earth Gascoigne creates a rough yet humble impression of the element Earth through a simple grid composition and the use of aged, sawn builders’ form boards secured to a backing board. With a range of colours from browns to grey and purple, the sawn builder’s form boards came from “the Canberra home” where for years, Rosalie watched “the light play on their surfaces, shining in the rain and drying in the sun.” These simple rectangles create an evocative three-dimensional, wall piece representation of the earth.

Tracey Moffat's Something More #1 (1989)

Tracy Moffat’s Something More #1 (1989) is part of her Something More series of colour and black-and-white photographs. Having a staged film stills style, Something More is well known to have been based loosely on “the trials of a poor but restless ‘coloured’ girl in rural Australia who wants ‘something more’ out of life than her lot in the back-blocks.” However, less is known about the set design, probably made with acrylic paint for the background landscape and wood for the wooden dwelling, and costumes selection. These were used to capture the 6 direct positive colour photographs and 3 gelatin silver photographs (approximately 100.6cm x 127.0cm each) that are now internationally renown. “Moffat brings her perspective on identity in local terms of her Aboriginality and femininity, but she also carefully styles her narratives to allow multiple readings beyond the specific politics of Australian identity.” Something More #1 is the introduction to this staged narrative and creates a vivid, engaging and emotive atmosphere from the start.

References:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/2008/11/rosalie-gascoig.html
http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/news/releases/2004/04/22/67/
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/nclub/stories/s545565.htm
http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=148563