In May this year, five artists from Ngukurr travelled to Melbourne to take part in a week-long intensive screen-printing workshop with professional printmaker Rebecca Mayo.
The workshop was a colour frenzy, with Rebecca and her assistants Eliza and Anna helping the artists mix colours, cut out stencils and even producing proofs of the artists' prints by the end of the week. Young artist Vivian concentrated all week on designing and then hand printing around 90 tea-towels and aprons for the upcoming Ngukurr Festival, an amazing effort. By week’s end the artists had completed one large and two small prints each. The subject matter included flourescent Barramundi, pink and blue river fish, cheeky stories of the old Mara days, dark Devil Devils and spotty crocodiles. In all, around 360 prints will be editioned from the 12 different designs which are richly vibrant and bursting with life. It was a pleasure to see the wonderful way the artists embraced their new workspace and facilitators, and the way they were able to seamlessly adapt their individual styles to the medium of screen-printing. The prints produced during the workshop complement and reflect the current art practice of each artist, and will help to invigorate the newly reopened Ngukurr Art Centre.
Please help us to complete this project by attending our fundraising auction on Thursday 30th August. All money raised will be used to support the screen-printing project and the artists of Ngukurr. Your support is invaluable, as it will benefit the entire community via the Ngukurr Art Centre and this exciting project.