As a paper and fabric printer, Rhonda Ellem’s current practice is closely underpinned by drawing, nature and colour exploration. She is currently pursuing two paths in printmaking.

Her intaglio practice requires investing time in the proofing process, where the possibilities of selective wiping, multi-colouring, chine collé and collage are thoroughly trialled. Imagery and context are paramount to her work.

Rhonda’s approach to relief printing is more experimental. She finds reduction printing too exacting and so avoids traditional editioning by creating large-format works which rely on the composition of interchangeable small blocks. She also employs the half-drop repeat as a way of composing continuous lino designs on wallpaper and fabric. She challenges the idea that lino printing always needs to be neat.

Predominantly a printmaker working in intaglio and relief, Lizzie Horne has exhibited widely and been shortlisted for a number of national print awards.

In August 2023 she will take up a month-long printmaking residency at Art Print Residence in Spain where she will begin work for her next solo show at NERAM in 2024.

She was shortlisted for the 2020 Swan Hill Print & Drawing award, 2021 and 2019 Peeble’s Print Prize and the 2018 Stanthorpe Art Prize, and had works selected for Inkmasters Print Exhibitions in 2021, 2018 and 2016. She has also been short-listed for the Milburn Art Prize. In 2017 she was the inaugural winner of the Helen Dangar Memorial Art Bursary administered by NERAM.

In 2023 and 2022 she has exhibited regularly at the New England Contemporary Print Gallery and was named Artist of the Year for the 44th Rotary Club of Uralla Art Exhibition.

Her last solo show was The uncivilized garden at NERAM in 2020, when she also participated in her first international exhibition at the Athens Printmaking Centre.

Horne is the director of the New England Contemporary Print Gallery in Armidale. She runs regular printmaking workshops in the gallery studio and in community centres around the region. She has also taught in NERAM’s Museum of Printing.

She is a member of the Print Council of Australia and the National Association of Visual Artists and is a founding member of the Black Gully Printmakers.

I majored in relief printing at Alexander Mackie CAE and it's always been my first love. My second is monotype, which combines drawing and printmaking. I print on paper and fabric.

My work tends to be laden with meaning so, for a little light relief, I throw the colours around from time to time on fabric using templates.

The phrase 'Dear Mum' is synonymous with most of us. The photograms were made using a series of found letters - a collection of saved thoughts, mundane telegrams, notes home form boarding school and places far from home. They open a conversation, possible only through their anonymity. The photograms are a shadow of their impression of the past; impressed memories of ink fading from their own folds in times. The printed phrases, 'Dear Mum' and 'p.s. I love you', were both common phrases across the collection of words from different hands. They open a conversation of intrigue and curiosity, while their humble honesty gently rings familiar bells.

Diana enjoys using a variety of techniques, depending on the subject matter. These include saline etching, drypoint, collographs, linocuts and monotypes. Adding letterpress to these adds another dimension to her images.

Her subject matter is mainly inspired by travel and landscape, both natural and urban.

Diana also explores alternative ways of presenting her work, as well as the usual 2D framed work.

In 1980 /81 I trained in fabric design and have printed in some form since then.

Fabric printing was my first love, working on small lengths of fabric ( 2-5 metres), hand scraping colour, screen printing and mono printing. This has extended into printing on paper.

Colour is a number one motivation for any work and layering of colour, pattern and image is how the works are created.

I always plan what I’m going to print but follow the process intuitively, which sometimes means it turns out completely differently, and I love the flexibility of this approach.

I have been with the Black Gully Printmakers since it began in 2017 and love working with a group of people who are passionate about printing.

Kelly’s affinity with Letterpress printing combines elements of every creative practice and personal interest that she has explored throughout her life. From an early love of books and the written word, graphic and industrial design, typography, photography, English literature, engineering and problem-solving; letterpress encapsulates it all. The combination of these practices manifests in a love of the overall process, the resulting prints, as well as the history and practice of printing and of the equipment itself. Since joining Black Gully Printmakers, Kelly has begun exploring the combination of linocut and letterpress, and the interplay between the hand-carved graphic elements and the precise type. She has also set up a home-based studio under the name of Hopscotch Press.

Jules works mostly in linocuts and monoprint.

She loves the sculptural act of making a relief image and enjoys the simplicity, fluidity and strength of the line that the carving process can add to her initial drawings.

Once she has carved the Lino and made a monochrome print, she then paints it with either watercolour or ink. This allows her to print the image multiple times and add colour in different ways, creating a variety of prints. She also likes to incorporate patterns in her prints in order to enhance various design elements within the image. She mostly prints on paper, sometimes on fabric.

Her art is influenced by the ideals of the arts and crafts movement where simple forms hero and celebrate the material, and where the distinction between fine and decorative arts is blurred.

Ross’ work focuses primarily on figurative and landscape studies. His goal is finding representations of the natural world that he finds inspiring.

While he works with a variety of media, his current focus is printmaking: it offers the opportunities, constraints and technical rigour to develop his artistic capability. Working with the Black Gully Printmakers provides him with the ideal mix of materials, interaction, inspiration and critique.

While Ross started with traditional, metal-based etching, the opportunities and workshops at Black Gully have broadened his scope in woodcut, letterpress and Gum Arabic-gouache monotype techniques. His current challenges are persistence, perseverance, patience and plate-wiping!

Since joining BGP, Emily Simson has built on a painting background and formal fine arts training from Tamworth TAFE and Newcastle University by experimenting with printmaking techniques to suit a variety of subjects and image-making projects.

Initially focused on the immediate landscape for inspiration to capture the light and shadow effects in the bush, her focus has moved into the observation of patterns and textures in nature.

Emily explores collagraph and monotype methods, sometimes together to layer textures, patterns and colours. Taking advantage of interchangeable plates to repeat patterns and using stencils or masked areas to create a variety of compositions with the same subject. The imagery comes through botanical and found objects from the bush and beaches, the printed form supports a curiosity of how patterns, shapes and textures can be combined.

Eveline Chan joined the Black Gully Printmakers to develop her art and printmaking practice through a shared community ethos.

Her work applies a range of printmaking techniques and media to explore the interplay of image and word, and the multiple layers of meaning they afford. She enjoys the somewhat unpredictable results of various monotype techniques as well as the more controlled, technical aspects of printmaking, and often combines these in her prints.

Many of her works reference patterns found in natural forms as a response to our increasingly fragile environments, and invite viewers to question the image and the ambiguities represented within.

Jennifer Miller has been based in the New England Tablelands since 1991, so her subject matter usually reflects the local landscapes. She is a keen amateur photographer with birds and plants often her subject matter. She is interested in the details and, particularly, the way light can bring these out. She often uses these photographs as inspiration for print making and then experiments with different ways to print the images.

In terms of technique, she regularly starts with dry point etching and then investigates ways to include colour and, sometimes, texture to her prints. She generally prefers to work on a small scale. She also uses a variety of paper, including eco-dyed paper, using plants gathered on daily walks.

Works included in group exhibitions:

Locus- New England Regional Art Museum
November 5 - January 30, 2022

Past present print
Black Gully Printmakers reference the Armidale Folk Museum

Armidale Council Chambers
February 5 - March 19 2021

Between the Lines:
Black Gully Printmakers inspired by Judith Wright

NERAM Travelling exhibition
Wolomombi Hall April 3 & 4 2021

Rainforest - worlds within
Black Gully Printmakers & Coffs Harbour Print Group at the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre

July 5 - August 19 2021
Black Gully Printmakers

Weswal Gallery, Tamworth, NSW
October 6 - November 6 2020