100 Views of Croqland - editioned prints
100 Views of Croqland is a homage to the series of Hiroshige and Hokusai’s famous 19th C Japanese ‘Images of This Fleeting World’ (Ukiyo-e), by name and aesthetic.
Thematically it is one of the series in the artistic eco-system that is the Croqland Suite, my ongoing attempt to understand and depict the essence and nature of my adopted country’s culture, based on the allegoric and, I argue, possibly heraldic image of the crocodile.
Croqland being my very subtle moniker for Queensland, mostly, but really Australia in general.
What all 100 Views have in common is that they are made on military surveillance maps of Queensland from the 1930-40s (mostly).
Old colourful maps seem to be universally loved and instantly trigger innocent, sentimental nostalgia.
And sometimes that is all the image is going for: allowing me to refresh and indulge in my blue-eyed tourist gaze at Croqland, ‘the exotic other’, depicting an actual, physical ‘view’, through rose-coloured glasses.
But then there is no imagery better symbolising the process of human take-over for ‘development’ and material extraction of a territory, or Country, than maps. So using military maps satisfies my deeply ‘German cultural practice’ of Zivilisationskritik, as well as my wannabe anthropologist past: Trying to understand and critically analyse Croqland’s ‘native culture’, its customs, beliefs and power structures.
The process
I started the series drawing and collaging directly onto the maps, but over time the motifs became more elaborate and I became worried about possibly ruining the very limited resource of vintage pre-WW2 maps.
Instead, I now first do a separate black line drawing, mostly based on my photography, then scan and print these onto the maps with archival pigment ink, to work over them with water colour, gouache, pens and colour pencil.
This allows me to use the same motif on different pieces of maps, in different sizes, with different colours.
Old map paper is not at all made for using water colours, however I embrace their imperfect application mingling with the patina of stains and tears on the old maps, as they embody the Japanese ideals of wabi sabi and mono no aware. These considerations are a fundamental through- line of the Croqland Suite, in as far as old, decaying cultural objects are not sought to be preserved or restored in historical ‘pristineness’, but re-charged with new meaning and re-animated and elevated in a different context.
All views are offered as limited edition prints, same size as the original: 20cmx25cm, on 21 x 19.7cm Epson Fine art matte paper,
printed with highest quality Epson K2 pigment inks.