The Stony Rises Project

Carmel Wallace

Carmel Wallace is a practising artist whose work has spanned printmaking, installation and assemblage since 1990. Her art focuses on the advantages of a multi-disciplinary exploration of place and its ramifications for environmental awareness and ethics. She gained her PhD in 1999 and has held lecturing positions at the University of the Sunshine Coast and Deakin University. Residencies include those undertaken at the University of Tasmania, the Santa Reparata Graphic Art Studio in Florence, and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York. In 2004 Carmel co-curated Surface Tension, a printmaking exchange exhibition shown in New York and Melbourne. Recent major projects include co-coordinating and participating in the Great South West Walk Art Project, which involved eight artists walking the 270 kilometre track and producing works for the exhibition Walk which toured Australia through NETS and VISIONS. Carmel’s work has been selected for national exhibitions including the Blake Prize and the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She is currently a finalist in the Montalto Sculpture Prize in Victoria. Her work is held in corporate and private collections both in Australia and internationally. Acquisitions include the National Library of Australia, the State Library of Victoria, and The Silk Cut Collection in the National Gallery of Australia. 

Interview

Why did you choose to be involved in The Stony Rises Project?

In 2007 I designed and build a sculpture, in collaboration with Vicki Couzens, referencing both indigenous and European land /water use and dry-stone building techniques: Fresh & Salty – South West was a RAV project in partnership with Windamara Aboriginal Corporation. In 2008 I was involved with the multi-disciplinary Volcanoes, Layers of Meaning project, curated by Lucia Pichler at Riddoch Art Gallery in South Australia, which was a thorough investigation of the volcanic landscape from Mt Gambier to Mt Eccles. The Stony Rises Project gave me the opportunity to further build on this experience through a study of the remaining volcanic landscape of the western plains. It was great to be invited to participate in three such complementary projects.

What is your connection to the Western District area of Victoria?

I live in Portland in this area of Victoria and have spent most of my life here.

Did you have any preconceived ideas or plans for your work before embarking on the artists’ camp?

My initial proposal (before the artists’ camp) was to work with disintegrating dry-stone walls: to work on a wall and to paint the repaired sections red. The paint would be temporary, so that over time the wall itself would return to its original condition (repaired). This process would not only be a positive one of tribute to the original wallers and their skills, but would also be a conceptual recognition of the negative side of the history of these walls and what they represent in terms of the displacement of indigenous peoples and the environmental impact of transplanting European farming methods to this continent. The repaired sections would symbolise the wounds of our heritage, but ones that are being attended to and are in the process of healing. This proposal seemed even more relevant after the artists’ camp, so I followed through with it. I also pursued my A Country Reader works as an expression of further concerns I wanted to address.

How would you describe your artistic practice from concept to making?

My art practice focuses on the advantages of a multi-disciplinary exploration of place and its ramifications for environmental awareness and ethics. Living in southwest Victoria, I have made my home territory the subject of much of my work.

My work is an expression of the environment and community it addresses. The approach I take is to immerse myself in the place that I am interpreting so that I can get to know it as well as I can. Materials are sourced locally where possible, providing an immediate connection to place. Techniques I employ also take local relevance into account.

What is it about the Western Districts that inspired you?

I began with the physical evidence. Iconic markers in the Stony Rises landscape take two major forms: the naturally occurring volcanic cones that dot the plains; and the culturally imposed dry stone walls that carve those plains into manageable rectangles of occupation. Derrinallum, on the Hamilton Highway, is one of many places where these icons meet. Here sits Mt Elephant, the highest volcano in the Stony Rises landscape. It is skirted by farmland with dry-stone wall boundaries. This is the familiar territory of my frequent travels between Portland and Melbourne: Mt Elephant marks the mid-point of these journeys. Scarred by mining incursions into its side, it sits brooding on the plain in one of an endless variety of moods. The sun or moon may be shining, but more often the Elephant is holding the clouds aloft or succumbing to their misty presence.

It is on these regular journeys that I observe details of the territory. I notice seasonal changes: the mountain – dry and red in summer, slowly transforming as the green grasses of winter creep up its sides; the dry-stone walls running parallel to the roads – sometimes hidden by tall grasses, but naked when the grasses are cut, revealing pattern changes from one locality to another as well as damaged sections and disintegration. I notice attempts to balance some of the damage caused by agricultural incursion and mining: recent plantings of kangaroo-grass along the roadside contrast with yellow expanses of canola crops; lines of young trees soften the wounds on the scarred side of the Elephant.

My thoughts move beyond the physical evidence. I wonder about my reading of the landscape: about the layers of history and the multitude of stories that lie entombed in this country. This is the home territory of the Djargurd wurrung people – the Teerinyillum gundidj clan lived at Mount Elephant. I want to acknowledge another way of living on this land, and the displacement of that way of life. I also think about western culture’s rationalist imposition on the natural environment and the consequences of employing a cultural paradigm that prioritizes a Cartesian view of the world.

What did you hope to capture in your work?

I wanted to address the concerns I have outlined above and engage with those layered stories of place.

Is this your usual practice or did the project bring about a new direction?

Being an avid beachcomber, I often look to the ocean and work with beach-found materials.
It was great to focus on other aspects of my home territory and to think of ways to interpret these in my artwork.

The Stony Rises Project

A NETS Victoria Touring Exhibition developed by the RMIT Design Research Institute. Curators: Lisa Byrne, Professor Harriet Edquist and Associate Professor Laurene Vaughan

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