
Deidre Vaill
Mokuhanga or Japanese woodblock printing is a process that is more than a process, it is a history lesson. The materials, paper, woodblock, and tools, tell their own story of the development of printing in Japan . I have made my own brushes and baren in the traditional Japanese method, and I grind my pigments and use use traditional tools. I mostly use Japanese paper or washi.
I am interested in the variations in texture and colour that can be obtained. Hand printing allows me to actually feel my way through the print process using different papers, different moisture of the block and paper, and different barens, to produce a variety of marks. The simplicity of the resultant image belies the complexity of the process of the printing.
My images tend to be of objects and scenes that have captured my imagination because of their shape, texture or colour, but need to be conveyed in recognisable form. This means I am rather a bowerbird, collecting images, but like the bowerbird I try to weave them together into a coherent whole.
Art Education
1972 -4 Royal Art Society of NSW Art School
1978 St Martins College of the Arts, London. (Screen printing)
1980 – 1986 Batchelor of Arts – Majoring in Renaissance art, Modern art and Modernism
1995 – 2000 Private tutelage
2002 – 2005 TAFE Hornsby
(Printmaking: Gary Shinfield, Charles Arnold, Jacqui Driver, Serephina Martin, Elizabeth Hunter)
(Painting: Margaret Ackland, Liz Cummins, Paul Miller, Roger Crawford)
2011- Stables Studio (Roslyn Kean)
Selective Exhibitions
2005 Jacque Cadrys Memorial Art Prize
2014 Mokuhanga Exhibition, Tokyo
Group Exhibitions
2003 Grosvenor Group – Hornsby Art Gallery
2004 Gaia, Gods and Goddesses – Hornsby Art Gallery
2005 Artful Images – Gallery Ettalong
Nexis – Pump Gallery, Ultimo
Force of Nature –Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Carnevale Art – St Andrews Institute, Sydney
2006 Seed – Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Eight – Westfield Hornsby
Latest Works – 272 Gallery, Turramurra
2010 Stables Studio Group – Hornsby Art Gallery
2011 Ink, Paper, Carve – Hornsby Library Gallery
2012 Summer Pudding – Art House Hotel, Sydney
2015 THink – Ewart Gallery
2016 Hornsby Art Prize – Wallarobba Gallery, Hornsby
2017 Juxtapose – Ewart Gallery
Memberships
Northside Printmakers
Founding Director Hornsby Art Gallery (now known as Wallaroba)
Stable Print Studio Artists –exhibiting member
Open Bite Inc