Layers, light at Living Arts Space

THE Living Arts Space in the Bendigo Visitor Centre has been transformed for a new exhibition featuring three central Victorian artists.

Chrisanne Blennerhassett, Diana Orinda Burns and Sam Trafford have collaborated for Layers and Light, showing now until 10 July.

Trafford, an artist and printmaker, made a series of linocuts using the technically challenging process of layering.

“I’ve made some reduction lino cuts and that involves making a design on a piece of lino and printing it in layers and gradually carving away the lino in between so an image emerges on the paper,” she said.

“Trying to take something beautiful in real life and the feeling that you have of the place and trying to get that onto the page is one challenge, and then you’ve got the technical challenge of trying to work out how to make that appear through a 2D matrix.”

The Kyneton based creative said the pieces celebrated her surrounds and the environment back in her hometown of Wiltshire, England.

“The thing I love about the countryside around here is it’s a combination of feeling very English, but it also feels very distinctly Australian as well and it changes quite a lot,” she said.

“You’ve got bits of Kyneton that have all the deciduous trees and are very English feeling and then you’ve got beautiful gumtrees and lovely native plants. I make prints mixing those.

“All of it is about finding a home, it’s all about a sense of place, where you belong and always taking bits of your history with you wherever you go.

“It’s a bit of an honour really that people might go and have a look at my work, enjoy it and hopefully take away something if they wanted to.”

An official opening of the exhibition is scheduled for 22 May.