Meet the artists presenting an Australian European Connection at Buda Castlemaine, with a special artist’s talk by Damon Kowarsky and the official opening by David Frazer with wine and canapes.

“This talk will look at depictions of landscape through my work and the contemporary and historical printmakers who have influenced it.

Landscape [along with portraiture and still life] is one of the three big themes in art. This talk will consider the ways landscape has expanded and contracted in response to new ideas about the world, and how it has come to be central to my current practice.

In a country as urbanised as Australia there is a paradox in our desire to visually depict landscape as separate from everyday experience – the Heidelberg School famously caught the train to paint their pastoral idylls.

For me it is this discomfort with our place in this country that feeds the enduring power of landscape art. It is also, given the truly astonishing environments we live in and at the margins of, a huge joy and privilege to be able to depict them through the medium of print.”

Damon Kowarsky

Damon Kowarsky | Equinox Printmakers | Sharon Greenaway | Dianne Longley | special guest David Frazer

Damon Kowarsky studied printmaking at Victorian College of the Arts and Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating he has travelled extensively. Architecture and the colours of earth and sky inspire much of his work.

Kowarsky is the recipient of awards including a Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award, Creative Victoria New Works Grant and Australia Council Asia-Australia Creative Partnerships Grant. He has worked as a scientific, courtroom, and archaeological illustrator.

In 2007 he taught drawing and studied miniature painting at Beaconhouse National University Lahore. In 2010, 2014, and 2017 he taught printmaking at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture Karachi.

Kowarsky exhibits regularly in Australia and abroad, including solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Hong Kong, New York, Philadelphia, Wellington, Cairo, Damascus, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

In 2014 and 2017 he was artist in residence at Guanlan Original Printmaking Base. In 2015 he was part of the Bait al Zubair Museum’s inaugural artist in residence program. In 2016 he completed a two month residency in France with the support of the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program for Artists. In 2018 Warrnambool Art Gallery undertook a substantial survey exhibition of his prints, paintings and drawings. He is currently working on a series of new etchings inspired by travels in North and South East Asia.

David Frazer has exhibited nationally and internationally with over 40 solo exhibitions since 1996 and a number of group exhibitions and prizes throughout Australia, China, the UK and Poland.

He will be very pleased to open the exhibition.