Debut installation explores marks left behind

AWARD-winning printmaker Amanda Western is presenting her debut 3D installation, transforming the interior of Kank Wolverang Records in the process.

Imprints: Marks We Leave Behind is on now until 30 August.

Western describes her first ever installation as “an immersive, site-responsive work that explores the quiet traces we leave on the world around us.”

Known for carved linocuts, the artist developed her practice in two dimensions and said the show marks a new foray into working large-scale 3D.

“I found the flat surface of traditional printmaking increasingly limiting and with this installation, I’m looking at how art can inhabit space and invite viewers to move through, around, and within the work itself,” she said.

“I’m just trying to take it off the flat plane into 3D space. Having said that, I do still have about 30 framed 2D prints in the show.

“I’m very monochrome but I do have quite an element of autumnal colour in it as well, a lot of earthy colouring, and a lot of the prints are printed in sepia. But I want the detail to be what captures people rather than the colour.”

Western is a finalist in this year’s Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, and was the 2024 Sunshine Coast National Art Prize People’s Choice recipient. She is also president of the Ballarat Society of Artists, and a Print Council of Australia committee member.

With this new exhibition, she is setting out to transform the industrial interior exhibition space of Kank Wolverang Records using hand-printed materials, plastic waste, reclaimed objects, and suspended forms.

“I’ve got half a truck load of installation pieces. A lot of the sculptural pieces are found or vintage pieces that I’ve repurposed. I’ve purchased quite a bit but it’s all secondhand,” Western said.

“All materials used in the installation have a past life, salvaged from waste, found, purchased secondhand, or vintage and given new meaning.”

A main motivation behind the new work was to explore how environments hold stories and how human beings leave their own marks behind in them, and the work draws on the artist’s background in disaster recovery and permaculture principles.

“It invites visitors to take part in the work by choosing a small sphere, a tactile, portable representation of the earth to be held, cradled and cared for,” she said.

“It reminds us that every step we take, however light, becomes part of the story of place.”

Kank Wolverang Records is at 30 Main Road, Bakery Hill. Gallery Hours are 10.30am to 5pm, Thursday to Sunday and admission is free.