Conversations with the Collection

Cressida Campbell & Moira Peddie

Collection Statement:

Sydney based artist Cressida Campbell portrays her own environment through the detailed and refined creation of woodblock prints. After travelling to Japan, Campbell developed an interest in the technique of traditional woodblock printing and realised its potential as an effective medium for her work. With precision, Campbell focuses on interiors and still lives, evidenced through acute observation, drawing skills and balanced composition. Despite their contemporary and western subject matter, Campbell’s expertly crafted pieces resonate the traditions of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, rather than western forms of realism. While she predominately focuses on the everyday, Cressida Campbell uses a primal affinity for form and pattern, a fusion of line, colour and subject, as well as harmony of subtle decoration. These works are discrete enquiries about the self and express a sense of introspection. The colours used within the prints appear to carry greater intensity than traditional watercolours that flood the images with a sense of light.

Moira Peddie
Hunter School of Performing Arts
The Art of the Domestic (detail) (2011)
Painting

ARTEXPRESS Artist Statement:

The art of the domestic is a representation of my house. A place so familiar to me with many associations. I have painted its interiors, capturing recognisable household objects and colours. Objects from famous artworks have been appropriated into these scenes, becoming details of the everyday in my house, just as they once were before they were immortalised in paint. Through my art I aimed to capture the joy of the domestic and the everyday. I presented my work within four panels as our home is a typical four-sided dwelling.

Curriculum Linkages
Frames:
Research the processes and methodology of traditional woodblock printing. Now using the structural frame discuss how Moria Peddie has captured the essence of a woodblock print using paint.

Conceptual Framework:
Peddie and Campbell both represent scenes of the domestic and everyday home environment traditionally the domain of women. How have these two artists expressed a uniquely feminine gaze?

Practice:
Investigate how Campbell adapts traditional woodblock printing for her own purposes and how the way she works changes the notion of what a print is.

Download ARTEXPRESS 2012 Conversation with the Collections.