2022 Jenny Birt Award

Featuring finalists Vedika Rampal, Evan Ye, Lige Qiao, Jessica Thompson, Aurelia King, Lucy McLauchlan, Mei Lin Meyers, Tia Madden, Heshanthi Munasinha, Conor Parsons, Fiona Macpherson, Aarushi Zarhoshtimanesh, Lua Pellegrini, Alyssa Alzamora, Matti, Bradley Mendels, Rebecca Bosley, Jasmine Cain, Astrid Elouise Bell, Brittany Bishop, Cassia Glynn Bray, Patricia Potter, David Wilson, Maya Elizabeth Cole

AD Space

29 June- 9 July 2022



Evan Ye (EY): What’s the process behind these paintings?

Matti (M): The project began as a way to explore my connection to the Australian landscape and the ways I see myself in it. During COVID lockdowns I spent a lot of time wandering around as a form of exercise; this led to art-walking as a foundational technique even though I was not initially aware of walking as an art discipline. By the time I graduated from the BFA programme and moved onto Honours, I was using art-walking as a way to document the landscape as well as a means to generate ideas for other works. I chose my local greenspace - Moore Park - as it is a site I visit frequently so it has a historical imprint of my presence. I began by dragging three-metre lengths of calico behind me to pick up marks from and by the landscape itself. Because of my height, the short canvas was mostly off the ground leaving a negative space where there should be marks so I switched to five-metre lengths. Dry calico is remarkably resistant to dry pigment so I wet it using water from the landscape (e.g. La Niña rainwater and dew) and my body (e.g. saliva and sweat). This binds me, the land, and the artwork together through Astrida Neimanis' concept of the hydrocommons, the idea that all water is connected and people, clouds, and rivers are just places where it has gathered for a while.


EY: What drew you into working in the landscape to create work?

M: I've always had a connection to the landscape; my parents had a semi-rural property with lots of gardens and an orchard so all the neighbourhood kids would come over to play there. As I grew up, and started practising photography I naturally went out into the urban, rural, and "natural" landscape to find interesting subjects. Later, I moved to ever-more urban areas for the lifestyle they afford but I have to get back into nature to de-stress and recharge. There is such beauty in the landscape that it can take my breath away. In my gardening practice I've taken over the planting and maintenance of our street gardens that extend are over two-hundred metres.


EY: How was the sense of time, space and location affecting your art practice and resolving the work?

M: The walking process that underlies these paintings is determined through interrogating archives and developing maps. The maps started out somewhat randomly but became very specific when I discovered that there are four 'mountains' in Moore Park. I was inspired by the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge in which a bold mountaineer summits the highest mountain on seven continents, and I absolutely loved that the Moore Park mountains (Mount Lang, Constitution Hill, Mount Rennie, and Mount Steel) are sand hills of only a few dozen metres above sea level! However, this forced me to follow an 8-kilometre track which took many hours, lots of caffeine, and not a few painkillers (I have a bad back and feet). The marks are made by dragging the canvas over the pigments - opposite to the way paintings are usually done - and indexical of the place the marks were made because they ARE the place the marks were made. To make things more challenging, if it rains, the water washes the pigments out of the calico leaving a completely blank surface. Getting home with an empty canvas is incredibly frustrating but it reminded me that I would never normally go for out to exercise in the rain so performing an art-walk in this year's inclement weather was not an accurate record of my life. Now I check the forecast before I leave base camp/home. So each painting is the landscape recording me moving through the landscape as I record the landscape I'm mo ving through. I love this sharing and mingling of agency in an artist/subject/material trialogue.




EY: What’s the idea behind ‘art-walking practice climbing mountains’ and how has it evolved through time?

M: As I am disabled, climbing one mountain let alone seven is something I am unlikely to do in real life, so this project gives me the opportunity to have an adventure at a scale I can manage. I began to think of other mountains I have climbed and remembered Mount Ayre in the Bungonia National Park two hours south of Sydney. When I looked at some maps I discovered that the summit is actually 15 metres lower than the car park, which perfectly suits my sense of the ridiculous! Then I recalled the infamously absent mountain in Mount Druitt so I found the highest peak, drew up a map from the train station and back and climbed dozens of metres over a couple of hours. As I celebrated my achievement in social media another user informed me that there are more, similar mountains in the Sydney area - such as Mount Ku-ring-gai - so the project has expanded to my version of the Seven Summits challenge. I get exercise, adventure, art, and a good laugh out of each 'climb'.


EY: Who are your artists of inspiration and how their art practices engage with yours?

M: Richard Long's famous 1967 work "A Line Made by Walking" crystallised for me the idea that art and walking could be the same thing and that an artwork could generate more artworks through documentation and inspiration. It's such a simple concept that has a profound meaning to those of us who incorporate it into their practice. Ana Mendieta's 'Siluetas' resonate with me because they explore the earth-body connection. We are very different people in very different situations but the intimate and immediate way she practiced her art astonishes me. I have gone on to create 'Siluetos' as a way to explore my connection to the landscape as well as expanding into this watercolour sequence. Sophie Cape is directly responsible for me dragging a canvas through the landscape because she did the same thing, although she did it trekking through the Himalayas. Her abstracted landscape paintings blow my mind each time I look at one.