ART VIA PARCEL EXPRESS
Ron or Stephen start the collaboration and send it in the post and then I will work on that and post it on
Years
of parcel posting art work with Australia Post has ensured the success of a unique collaboration between artists based in Toowoomba and Townsville.
The result is Cosmic Witness postal collaboration series which are works that are part of the exhibition Postworld at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts.
Cosmic Witness is a celebration of more than 10 years of works between Catherine Parker, Ron Mcburnie and Stephen Spurrier.
“We sent works back and forth in the post and also every year Stephen and I come to Magnetic Island,” Catherine tells NQ Weekend.
“Ron or Stephen start the collaboration and send it in the post and then I will work on that and post it on.
“Sometimes these works can go back and forth in the post three or four times.”
Catherine said some of the artworks started in 2013.
“Sometimes when you think it’s all finished Ron might go ‘I’m going to make a Peacock out of that circle’ so we don’t always know exactly when that time is.
“I tend to do either mark making or one-off figurative elements, it might be a chair, or it might be a figure.”
Catherine said receiving the artwork by parcel delivery was a positive.
“There’s something really beautiful about receiving a surprise when it comes as a parcel because we never know what that it will look like and it might be work that we started five years ago,” she said.
“Then it is returned to us and then we have a fresh view of that.”
Cosmic Witness is part of the Postworld exhibition which features artists and collectives who create parallel universes in their creative practice.
Cosmic Witness is looking at the universe, and all the space junk and what it is to look at the night sky and the human epoc,” Catherine said.
Catherine, Ron add Stephen will hold a Cosmic Witness Collaboration Workshop tomorrow at Umbrella Studio’s gallery space and studio.
People can join the trio to develop unique artworks in collaboration with others..
Workshop participants will work in small groups and across different stations of mediums with the artists.
The workshops will be held between 10am and 4pm tomorrow, August 14. To register go to umbrella.org.au
Cosmic Witness will be held at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Flinders St, until August 21.