Applications are closing soon for Artisan’s emerging regional Queensland artist residency.
This Brisbane-based residency offers you a career-changing opportunity to immerse yourself completely in your art – with all expenses covered for up to six weeks. Open to all craft and design practitioners. The program includes:
- Travel, accommodation, living costs and material expenses for up to 6 weeks
- Mentoring and career development
- Vocational training
- A curated exhibition at artisan
But don’t wait, apply now! Submissions close on 20 February 2024.
For full information and to apply, visit https://artisan.org.au/pages/artisan-residency-program-queensland-2024
Please note that the Artisan’s emerging regional Queensland artist residency is not associated with NorthSite Contemporary Arts and this is general information.
Careers: Print Coordinator
Position title: Print Coordinator
Category of employment: Permanent, full-time
Salary: $65,000 per annum, plus superannuation
Locations: NorthSite Art Studios (55 Greenslopes St Edge Hill 4870)
Closing date: 5PM, Wednesday February 7, 2024
NorthSite Contemporary Arts seeks a Print Coordinator to revitalise printmaking initiatives and support artists. This role focuses on fine-art printmaking, editioning and offers printmaking development programs specialising in techniques such as intaglio etching, relief printing, screen-printing, and more.
ABOUT NORTHSITE
NorthSite Contemporary Arts (formerly KickArts) is a leading arts organisation with a 30-year history of exhibiting exemplary art and supporting contemporary artists in Far North Queensland. The organisation has a fundamental role in ensuring the advancement of contemporary art in Cairns and greater North Queensland, through the on-going development, delivery and promotion of exhibitions, programs, events and provision of artistic services.
Our mission is to link ideas, artists, audiences and supporters to present contemporary art and design that brings people together, stimulates conversation and provides transformative experiences.
NorthSite Art Studios, located within the Cairns Cultural Precinct on Greenslopes Street, (previously run by InkMasters Inc. and as Djumbunji Press) is a professional studio for training, community workshops and the production of high-quality fine-art-printmaking.
POSITION DESCRIPTION
The Print Coordinator is a new position that will drive the activation of the NorthSite Art Studios and the revitalisation of printmaking in Far North Queensland.
Focused on printmaking and print education initiatives, working closely with leading contemporary artists and the broader community, the Print Coordinator will bring a strong network and an innovative, sustainable approach to the role.
In collaboration with colleagues, they contribute to shaping NorthSite Art Studios as a recognised hub for fine-art-printmaking offering various techniques including intaglio etching, relief printing, screen-printing and other print methods.
Prioritising skills development and income-generating opportunities for artists, the Print Coordinator ensures increased participation in print initiatives, effective editioning and costing of new fine-art prints and a positive workshop environment. They will actively support artists from the region to take ideas from conception to actualisation, and acquisition into targeted marketplaces and collections. Responsibilities include managing the printmaking studios, facilitating workshops, making new print works available for distribution and fostering relationships.
NorthSite presents and promotes the work of Far North Queensland contemporary artists and celebrates the cultural diversity of the North. This position requires a person that works well with varied artists and cultural groups, and engages well with the broader arts community including artists, guest curators, sponsors, partners and other stakeholders.
The Print Coordinator will think critically about the work they undertake in collaboration with artists, by employing strong listening, empathy and engagement skills. The Print Coordinator plays a crucial role in delivering printmaking activities that support NorthSite’s vision, and mission.
RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Strategic Development:
- Shape development of NorthSite Art Studios as a recognised site of fine art printmaking, and an active hub that also facilitates professional development of artists across creative technology and design.
- Contribute to strategic, operational, business plans and budgets for the Print Program from 2025 onwards.
- Explore new markets for artists with the Retail Manager and contribute to the marketing plan with the Communications Coordinator.
- Contribute to longer term studio strategic planning with CEO.
2. Program Implementation and Printmaking:
- Organise education, community workshops, fee-for-service initiatives, and fine art editioning.
- Participate in, and coordinate talks, masterclasses, and consultancies.
- Actively increase the organisation’s reputation, participation levels and sales through print initiatives.
- Facilitate outreach programs and foster collaborations, linking back to artist-in-residence program.
- Engage artists, curators, sponsors, partners, and stakeholders in programs.
- Work closely with partners to achieve outcomes.
- Collaborate with the Programs Coordinator to schedule and host weekly activities at NorthSite Art Studios.
- Oversee professional development of printmakers, facilitators, and interns.
- Commission limited edition prints in collaboration with the Artistic Director and Curator.
- Work with Curator to prepare print works for outgoing exhibitions including framing, freight, condition reports and insurance arrangements.
- Provide content for online promotion, sales, and storytelling.
3. Financial Management and Print Administration:
- Work to set budgets and contribute to the formation of detailed strategic, operational and business plans and budgets for the Print Program from 2025 onwards.
- Achieve annual KPIs, contributing to print initiative growth.
- Edition and cost prints for wholesale, retail, and the NorthSite Store.
- Maintain accurate databases records for all prints and stakeholders.
- Contract artists, prepare commissioning agreements, licensing, and support services.
- Identify and seek project support.
- Manage project budgets, stock levels, material orders and sales.
4. Community Engagement:
- Prioritise local artist opportunities.
- Demonstrate high cultural and community engagement skills.
- Travel for delivery of outreach programs.
- Promote wider public engagement with printmaking.
5. Studio and Facility Management:
- Develop effective systems for workflow and resource management.
- Oversee building maintenance, personnel training files, and key registers.
- Implement and oversee WH&S processes.
- Ensure sustainability targets are set and met.
- Conduct inductions, maintain studio order, and manage equipment.
- Present studio to highest professional standards and nurture a positive workshop environment.
- Manage professional print studios and foster relationships to drive sustained growth and productivity.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Minimum 5 years of printmaking experience.
- Tertiary degree in visual arts or related field, strong knowledge of printmaking techniques and industry, facilitation experience.
- Understanding Queensland and Australian arts ecologies; regional printmaking gaps and opportunities.
- Strong technical, communication, administration, WH&S, and project management skills.
- Knowledge and understanding of the visual contemporary arts industry and ability to articulate important issues relating to the arts and culture.
- High cultural competency to work well with diverse Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and local cultural groups.
REQUIREMENTS
- Proficiency in printmaking techniques and education.
- Demonstrated experience in art studio management.
- Experience in developing and delivering printmaking workshops.
- Strong community engagement and facilitation skills to work well with diverse cultural groups and community.
- Ability to effectively edition and cost prints for different markets and outlets.
- Strong ethical approach to printmaking and engagement with artists.
- Team player with autonomy aligned with the organisation’s strategic plan.
- Ability to manage multiple projects in an organised and flexible manner.
- Computer and software competency.
- Strong verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
- Current Driver’s license.
KEY RELATIONSHIPS
- Reports to Artistic Director and CEO.
- Collaborates with artists, workshop facilitators, peer organisations, community groups, suppliers, members, patrons, NorthSite Curator, Retail Manager, Programs Coordinator, Communications Coordinator, and Administrator.
TO APPLY
Download the Position Description document to ensure you meet the criteria.
If you are passionate about printmaking, community engagement, and supporting a new chapter for printmaking in northern Australia, submit your resume and a cover letter to hello@northsite.org.au by 7 February 2024.
For further details about the position or organisation contact Ashleigh Campbell director@northsite.org.au.
Closing date: 5PM, Wednesday February 7, 2024
Programs Coordinator Melania Jack
NorthSite is pleased to welcome Melania Jack as the Programs Coordinator.
Melania has worked with NorthSite over the past three years and stepped into the Programs Coordinator role in November 2024. Melania is underway with a great line-up of events and workshop for 2024 which includes the monthly Artist Connect group. Keep an eye out on our events page for all our upcoming events and workshops.
Melania has 15 years of experience as an artist and facilitator. With a multi-arts practice, video, sound, performance, installation and projection, Melania has exhibited locally and internationally and is part of the award-winning duo, The Ironing Maidens. Melania has a Masters in Creative Industries and is passionate about creating opportunities for regional artists.
2024 Exhibition Program
NorthSite Contemporary Arts is excited to announce its 2024 exhibition calendar. Next year’s exhibition program celebrates the breadth and diversity of practice in Far North Queensland, in dialogue with artists who have strong connections to the region.
Our first season for 2024 will include the inaugural presentation of ‘Ngurruwarra/Derndernyin (stone fish trap)’, a monumental painting installation by established and emerging artists from Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, Mornington Island Art, the outcome of a research project led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH). Alongside this exhibition will be ‘Conversations with my barista (real or imagined)’, a new video installation by Cairns-based Selina Kudo; and ‘Facing Time: 50 Years’ a collaboration between artists and long-term friends Euan Macleod and Cairns-based Geoff Dixon.
Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, ‘Ngurruwarra/Derndernyin (stone fish trap)’, (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation.
Season two will focus on the local environment, with Mossman-based artist Anastasia Klose presenting ‘For thy sake I in love am grown’ an ambitious exhibition of new drawings, video and daily performance, responding to the diminishing biodiversity in Queensland and immanent threats to its unique landscapes. Annika Harding’s ‘Flux and Fog: Landscapes of the Atherton Tablelands’ examines moments of tension between the built environment and agricultural landscapes, the lush rainforest ecosystem and associated intense weather patterns.
Anastasia Klose, For thy sake I in love am grown, (detail). Image courtesy the artist.
Major gallery exhibitions throughout 2024 will be complemented by project shows on the Long Gallery and Foyer walls, with a focus on early career and First Nations practitioners, supported by NorthSite curator Aven Noah Jr and the wider team. Project wall shows will include outcomes from the Spotfire printmaking development program, a jewellery and small object exhibition curated by Lauren Carter, and the ever-popular annual NorthSite Art Market.
In season three, NorthSite will present a suite of exhibitions by Queensland First Nations artists, coinciding with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) 2024. This will include the premiere of a major new video and sound installation ‘way to be’ by artist Vernon Ah Kee (Kuku Yalanji, Yidinyji and Guugu Yimithirr), harnessing drone footage and data to showcase the Magnificent Gallery of Rock Art in Western Yalanji country as never seen before. In partnership with Gab Titui Cultural Centre, Thursday Island, Aven Noah Jr will profile exciting new developments in practice from leading and emerging Torres Strait Islander artists.
Season Four showcases experimental approaches to the local landscape, through Oak Beach artist Jill Chism’s ‘Remnants’, an exhibition of recent and existing assemblage and installation works that explore our relationship to an increasingly fragile natural world. Topaz-based artist Luke Aleksandrow presents the third iteration of ‘The Break Project’ entitled ‘Sounds of the Tropics’, documenting the breakage of ceramics made by artists from the region, accompanied by an atmospheric soundscape.
Jill Chism, Remnants, (detail). Image courtesy the artist.
For the final season of the year, NorthSite will present the touring exhibition ‘I, Object’ from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, which considers the many complex relationships Indigenous Australian artists continue to have with cultural objects – from the histories informing their creation to the social and cultural consequences of their collection.
In addition to the onsite exhibition program, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, will present ‘Compositional Utterances’, a site-responsive, collaborative exhibition by Brisbane-based artists Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver, whose material-led practices share feminist and ecological concerns. The exhibition is a collaboration between NorthSite and the University of Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, and will be presented at the Court House Gallery in Cairns, supported by Cairns Regional Council. NorthSite will again present an exhibition and art market stall at the Cairns Convention Centre, as part of the CIAF 2024; and is working with artist/curator Taloi Havini to showcase the work of artists from FNQ Sea Country, at Ocean Space, Venice during the 60th Venice Biennale.
ON NOW | See Exhibitions
Planetary Gestures travels to Melbourne
Planetary Gestures was exhibited at NorthSite Contemporary Arts earlier this year. Curated by Tess Maunder, the exhibition explores ideas surrounding ecological systems, ancient knowledge, celestial blueprints and tidal movements across the land, sea and sky known as Australasia, part of the wider Asia-Pacific and the ‘Great Ocean’. The exhibition includes work by artists Amrita Hepi, Susie Losch, Raqs Media Collective, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jimmy John Thaiday and Trevor Yeung.
We’re thrilled to see Planetary Gestures touring to Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre in Dandenong, Melbourne. The opening preview is this Saturday, 23 September from 2PM-4PM with the exhibition running until 3 November 2023.
Location: Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre, Cnr Walker and Robinson streets, Dandenong
Opening Hours: Tues-Fri 12pm – 4pm
Exhibition runs from 26 SEPTEMBER 2023 until 3 NOVEMBER 2023
LINKS
Artists’ Residency
NorthSite will host four senior artists from Moa Arts during a month-long residency at NorthSite Art Studios. David Bosun, Solomon Booth, Fiona Mosby and Paula Savage will be participating in a series of intensive printmaking sessions through September and October 2023 to develop new works.
During the residency, these four senior artists will be preparing new works for an exhibition at Tarnanthi in Adelaide later this year as well as two international exhibitions planned for 2024 and 2025. This is an exciting time for these artists who are looking forward to getting into the print studio alongside Moa Arts long-term printmaking facilitator Dian Darmansjah from Firebox Studios.
This year David Bosun, Solomon Booth, Fiona Mosby and Paula Savage displayed work in the CIAF2023 satellite exhibition ‘Malu Bardthar Dapar | Sea Land Sky’ at NorthSite Contemporary Arts. We’re excited to welcome them into NorthSite Art Studios and continue to follow their success.
2023 Queensland Regional Art Awards
The Queensland Regional Art Awards (QRAA) is an annual visual arts prize and exhibition for established and emerging artists living in regional and remote Queensland hosted by Flying Arts Alliance.
This year the highly anticipated regional art awards offer a record prize pool of over $140,000. The theme for the 2023 QRAA is Perspective, calling artists to enter work which considers the concept of perspective in its many facets, viewpoints and nuances. The theme plays on a term known in the visual arts and relevant to our modern society, reflecting different individual and collective viewpoints and opinions, stemming from varying life-experiences, perceptions, understandings, memories and emotions. Flying Arts Alliance is looking for stimulating entries that address this broad concept through the visual arts and share story-telling that extends notions of individual and collective perspective.
Call for Entries
The 2023 Queensland Regional Art Awards are now open, with artists from across Queensland living outside the Brisbane City Council boundary encouraged to apply for the prestigious visual arts competition.
Key Dates
11 August, 4pm AEST — Entries open
6 October, 4pm AEST — Entries close
24-29 November — Finalists exhibited at Judith Wright Arts Centre
24 November — Winners Announced at Gala Reception
Award Categories Include
‘Art for Life’ Award
Total prize pool of $40,000.
The Mervyn Moriarty Landscape Award
Total prize pool of $28,900.
First Nations Artist Award
Total prize pool of $15,000.
Remote Artist Award
Total prize pool of $15,000.
Emerging Artist Award
Total prize pool of $15,000.
Environmental Art Award
Total prize pool of $15,000.
Image courtesy of Flying Arts Alliance INC
Free Studio Access, Express Your Interest!
NorthSite is excited to announce our new Studio Access Program for local Artists. The first program will launch at the end of October and run until early December 2023. We welcome emerging, mid-career and established practising artists, looking for studio space, to express interest in applying for the program.
On Tuesday 12th September NorthSite, will hold an information session to answer any questions about the program.
Information Session Details
Date: Tuesday 12th September
Time: 3pm – 5pm
Location: NorthSite art studios – 55 Greenslopes street, Edge Hill
Join us: https://events.humanitix.com/northsite-art-studios-public-access-information-session
About the opportunity:
Free Studio Access
- Three studio spaces: Main Studio, Print Studio and Printing Shed
- Dates: 23 October 2023 until 5 December 2023 (first season)
- 3hr time slots (morning/afternoon) Monday and Tuesdays
- Location: 55 Greenslopes Street, Edge Hill, 4870
Who can apply
- Emerging, mid-career, and established practicing artists
- Priority will be given to artists who have an active project
Requirements
- The artist must have their own public liability to the value of $20mil please check Nava for rates and discount insurance.
- The artist must supply their own materials; equipment such as the printing press can be requested upon request.
Additional Information
- There are no storage facilities available for any work to remain onsite
- All materials and artwork you own must be removed from the site at the end of each session
- NorthSite Art Studios is a shared co-working space
- Successful applicants are required to undergo an induction into the studio space
- The Printing Shed is only available on request,. and to artists that are screen printing and/or creating large scale work
If you have any further questions feel free to get in contact with programs@northsite.org.au
LINKS
Claudine Marzik’s Undara Paintings
Words: Ross Searle
The opportunity to write about Claudine Marzik’s impressive art practice is indeed a pleasure. On first seeing her work I was impressed by its refined but energetic gestural mark-making that appeared to contain a language that was both familiar but unique in the way that it responded to the particularities of the ‘northern’ seasonal environment. She is perhaps best known for a series of paintings relating to the seasons which reference the dynamics of seasonal and changing weather patterns from quite subtle shifts to extreme conditions that have major impacts on the land. The sense of ‘familiarity’ I first recognised in her painterly gesture in the early 1990s no doubt relates to the influences of ‘gestural’ abstraction that found its place in American and European painting after World War II. A process and not a movement, it continues to be shaped by European artists such as Gerhard Richter and Australians Aida Tomescu, Ildiko Kovacs and of course, Claudine Marzik.
Her capacity to encapsulate the intensity of the environment of northern Australia has been noted by writers Gavin Wilson who observed; ‘her work reaches deep into her emotional reserves to construct images that suggests states of mind’1 and Ingrid Hoffman who wrote about the impact of knowing the landscape that ‘comes out of time spent discerning the morphology of plants and their distilled colour, their intricate prickliness, their smooth shapes, their grace and vulnerability’.2 This ability to zoom in and out of the landscape to see it not only in terms of its parts but also as a system that communicates an emotional state is intriguing.
Recent projects include The Body Language of Plants which came about from working with materials collected as part of herbarium specimens. The science-art nexus continues with the current exhibition.
This new body of work relates to the Undara Volcanic National Park, a unique geological site she first visited in 2017. ‘Undara’ is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘long way’. The park protects a system of 190,000-year-old lava tube caves, the longest in the world. Located 264 km south-west of Cairns, they are the result of an eruption, spewing molten lava over the surrounding landscape. The lava flowed rapidly down dry riverbeds with the top, outer layer cooling and forming a crust, while the molten lava below drained outwards, leaving behind a series of hollow tubes.
An almost autonomous natural ecosystem, Claudine was captivated by the cave-system of the lava tubes and the depositions on the cave ceilings and walls. Drawing ideas from earlier visits and a recent residency supported by Discovery Holiday Parks through Undara Experience, resulted in a new series of work. With each visit she took photographs and did onsite drawings, made notes, and compiled a visual lexicon of the site – an iterative process that allowed her to hone her ideas and images. In recent years, artists like Claudine have adopted a profusion of methods, practices, and experiences to enhance the interface between the visual arts and environmental-scientific concerns. In Claudine’s case, she has made an especial study of the morphology and topography of Undara.
The sensation of being in a submerged environment with its dark corners and surprising patches of light that break through the ceilings is manifested in the tonal gradients she employs in the paintings on canvas and paper for this exhibition. The palette she employs is influenced by the various minerals in the caves including basalt, iron oxide and calcium carbonate. The underlining minerals reveal tones of red, yellow, and green contrasting with the black rock basalt intrusions, the lighter toned calcium carbonate and richer iron oxide. A recurring compositional device that is used in several of the paintings is a doorway shape, as if looking out from the darkness of the cave into the light. We see this clearly in the large paintings which alternate between looking into the caves and out into the open. Claudine reflects that ‘being inside the cave looking towards the exit which can be seen about 50 meters away, is a captivating view. It releases emotions (and) it’s like a sensation of new life and hope. Back to safety, back to the known from the unknown, back to the light from the dark. Back from the cold to the warm.’3
The exhibition has been grouped to reinforce compositional ideas based on the geological forms, surface patterns, depositions, graffiti, and textures that appear on walls and ceilings. Far from being a static environment, natural formations from the speleothem deposits continue to accumulate to form subtle new layers not unlike some of the paintings which are worked and layered like strata. Some of the artworks are tightly framed views of the deposition of minerals on the tube walls and ceiling as if looking through a photographic lens which at once makes everything equally comparable without a reference point.
Undara is the perfect place for her to test new approaches to the landscape. In Claudine’s hands her artworks possess a tight undulant pattern reminiscent of natural surfaces found in this unique landscape. The effect of this is to make the texture not only closer to that of the actual cave surfaces but also to overcome of what Gerhard Richter suggests is the over importance of edges and borders; to make everything equal and allow the viewer’s brain to impose its own structure on the artwork.4 Her way of working at Undara was to create sets of visual references and once in the studio this material was used to create this series of works that reference her macro-micro responses to surface textures, dramatic geological intrusions, and mineral accretions. Although some works contain a complex layering of paint pattern and form, in general there is a looseness in the shapes and forms and a more free, spontaneous approach.5 It is a thrilling body of work.
Words: Ross Searle
Footnotes
1 Gavin Wilson, Country and western landscape re-imagined, exhibition catalogue, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 2015, p 40.
2 Ingrid Hoffman, Seed to seed, exhibition catalogue, KickArts Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2012.
3 Claudine Marzik email to author, 7 August 2023
4 Misha Ketchell, Nature makes abstract visual art more captivating. The conversation, March 25, 2014
5 Claudine Marzik, ibid
LINKS:
Artists’ selected for Cairns Festival ‘Reef Lights’
Part of Cairns Festival 2023, ‘Reef Lights – Where The Rainforest Meets The Reef‘ will illuminate the Cairns Esplanade from this Friday (25 August) until Sunday 3 September showing from 6.30pm – 10.00pm each night.
NorthSite was thrilled to assist in selecting Artists from Far North Queensland to be part of the outdoor light show for 2023. A special congratulations to all the incredible Artists’ involved: Leanne Hardy, Brian Robinson, Billy Missi, Robert Tommy Pau, Gertie Tomsana, Betty Sykes, Elverina Johnson, Joel Sam, Margaret Mara, Matilda Nona and Peter B Morrison.
‘Reef Lights – Where The Rainforest Meets The Reef‘ is an immersive outdoor light experience inspired by the unique tropical environment of Far North Queensland. Guests will experience a ‘watershow’ with lasers and lights at the Cairns Lagoon, a myriad of artworks projected along the footpaths and enchanting soundscapes.
LINKS
Reef Lights is a project by Cairns Regional Council and Laservision. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Festivals Australia program. This project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.
Joel Sam’s artwork projection for Reef Lights. Image courtesy of Laservision.