Wood engravings and drypoints

Tanya Myshkin

18 May - 29 June

Wood engravings and drypoints is a solo exhibition by Quinbean/Queanbeyan artist Tanya Myshkin. The exhibition brings together works across the breadth of Myshkin’s practice, including her large figurative wood engravings and intaglio prints.

Through a sustained practice of close observation, drawing and printmaking, Myshkin draws a range of subject matter from life and death. Birds, mice, rats and marsupials are frequent subjects within her extraordinary wood engravings that explore traditions of figuration and still-life. Emerging out of fine networks of drawn lines and atmospheric grounds, solitary figures suggest psychological states in her drypoint prints.

By working with cross-grain sections of various tree species, Myshkin extends the possibilities of wood engraving. Painstakingly working at a larger scale than traditional engravings, Myshkin’s prints are taken from entire cross-sections of timber, in particular working with the unpredictable and sensitive grain of Eucalyptus species. Through the inking process, Myshkin traces the presence of the tree’s striations and growth rings, the wood’s cracks and fissures that open as the timber dries. In this way, the artist brings her various subjects and figures into conversation with the history of figure drawing in Australia, explored in tandem with the material history of the tree within the final printed image.

Tanya Myshkin is a Quinbean/Queanbeyan based printmaker working in the fields of wood engraving, intaglio and livres d’artiste. Her practice spans more than forty years, and she has exhibited widely across Australia. She has held a number of solo exhibitions, and her work is held in many collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, State Library of Victoria, The British Library, London, and the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg.

Wood engravings and drypoints is on display 18 May - 29 June

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