Golden harvest, Blacksoil Plains II
Michelle Black
600mm x 500mm /
Works on Paper
This artwork is available for purchase. Please contact the exhibiting gallery for details
1st Place: Works on paper
Rich, productive and vast black soil plains. The Western Downs is a landscape of repetition and pattern; crops changing with the seasons, paddocks ploughed in parallel, fallow, or sprouting from seed. Golden barley fields in spring are harvested beneath big skies. Here I have used black soil from the earth, rubbed with ink, with hand-printed woodcuts of harvested barley and ploughed fields.
Curator’s Comment
This work demonstrates a high level of professional resolve, and is mature in its composition, materials, and colour scheme. It gives a sense of the essence and connection to place stripped back to essential visual elements. The artwork statement supports the connection of process and material to place, and the artist’s positioning within a rural context.
About the artist
Black is a printmaker who uses natural materials and inspiration from the landscape in her works to provide a deeper connection to the Country where she lives. Coastal landscapes gave way to new stimulus from the repetition and vastness of agricultural landscapes of the Western Downs upon relocation in 2023.