all that is held: slack tide memories

Mokulito (wood lithography), block printing & monoprint,  with vintage brass fasteners

 2024

100 x 100 cm framed

Kristen Lang’s poem all that is held…and what the artist paints in reply has catapulted me into new thinking about  responding to my experiences in a residency in  Point Nepean National Park in Victorias’ Mornington Peninsular area.

There is an inherent reverence and spirituality in this poem which resonated deeply for me as I connected and collaborated with Monmar, the name given to this area by the Bunurong people.

Lang anchors us to place with lyrical descriptions of earth, air, memory and change. and describes the process of responding to place using her senses, questioning her connection to place, exploring memories captured and explored through touch. She describes an encompassing warmth pulsing through her body as it responds to the many colours she experiences. Her words-  but my experience,  as I sought ways to visualise and encapsulate a collaboration with this place, both past and present.

I chose to print my reply. I have used Mokulito (wood lithography), block and monoprinting  techniques layered and floating, to create all that is held , a slack tide revelation where deep memories of land, sea and peoples ripple and float together under the surface. Hovering above are symbolic layers of post colonial history and use- removal of Bunurong women by sealers, the quarantine station, a strategic military defence, and ecological alterations. Where memories of shipwreck, disease and human settlement  straddle the resilient spirit of place held by vintage brass fastenings gifted by Annette Buckland, Nepean Historical Society from her personal collection.