Slitting Light#5

BACKGROUND: Printmaking has long been an art form of replication using a matrix and debates about original versus copy, sameness and difference continue. While originally analogue media, etching and lithography were employed to reproduce images more recently digital technology has opened up alternative modes of thinking and production of prints and expanded understanding of print practices. In this exhibition the matrix is considered in new and expanded ways through innovative techniques and concepts. CONTRIBUTION: Duxbury's screen print Splitting Light#5 uses Isaac Newton's scientific explanation of splitting light into its constituent colours through a prism to create rainbows to engage a viewer in the process of splitting light itself. In this print red and blue mica dust flocking on transparent screen-printed text represents each end of the colour spectrum. The colour in the print can only be observed by a viewer standing at a particular point in front of the print in the way of seeing a rainbow in the sky - each person sees his or her own rainbow. The installed height of the print replicates the act of looking up into the sky to view the rainbow engaging the viewer in the act of creating the work. SIGNIFICANCE: The exhibition was commissioned by RMIT Gallery for 2016 Year of the Print and 65 years since printmaking was first taught at RMIT, the first course in Australia. According to Suzanne Davies, Director and Chief Curator of RMIT Gallery Printmaking is a discipline that can be endlessly invented. The exhibition was reviewed favorably in the Age and SMH newspapers 26 April