Seeing the world in colour

Yackandandah artist Linda Fish has embraced colour in her latest public art instalment in The Cube Wodonga Courtyard.

The sculptor and traditional black and white linocut artist moved to colourful monoprinting for her series of three artworks featuring different types of leaves.

“Black and white linocut is my preferred technique but at the time I was teaching printmaking at TAFE,” Fish said.

“I was inspired by different coloured leaves and spent the year doing coloured monoprints.

“I like to say that it was my year of colour.”

Fish created a series of 20 monoprints last year, three of which are on display as part of the public art instalment.

Her concept explores the visual connections we all make between nature, places and people.

“I am a nature lover and make that connection through my work,” she said.

“Plants and trees may connect us to a certain time, person or place through the transmission and transformation of visual memory.”

The prints of different types of leaves are sourced from plants that have triggered a memory for her, either through a direct or indirect pathway.

“Most of us have memories of plants, perhaps from bush landscapes or family gardens,” Fish said.

“The printed leaves are designed to jolt people’s memories and remake a remembered connection to land and nature.”

One of the prints features leaves from a Japanese bushfire maple tree.

“I started these works in 2019 and bushfires seemed to be everywhere at the time so it was at the back of my mind, especially the summer before where we had fires up north,” she said.

Fish was also inspired by Silky Oak trees, specifically two Silky Oak trees still growing in her parents’ home that remind her of her origins.

The Silky Oak tree print is not part of the public art installation.

Fish uses the techniques of monoprinting and drawing to give a layered surface to the works.

First the leaves are printed, followed by the lines drawn with extra colour added using alcohol ink pens, graphite or pastel.