Etching. A view across a narrow stretch of water from under a derelict bridge and partly finished overpass beside which are two bare trees. The distant shore is edged with trees, in front of which is a row of six lights, some reflected in the water. At the lower right is a man who walks away from traffic lights towards the right. Billowing clouds occupy the central square of the composition. The subject is lightly etched, especially in the left half of the image, and some foul biting is evident in the upper sky. There are two variant impressions of this state.
The plate has been re-etched and much new etching has been added throughout, evoking a mood of turbulent darkness. Dark clouds are now visible at the upper right, and the entire foreground has been darkened with cross-hatching.
An area in the central clouds has been burnished to enhance the clouds’ volume and to provide a central highlight.
- Catalogue Number
- E.124
- Title and Date
- Outlying districts 2001
- Description of Featured Image
- A view across a narrow stretch of water from under a derelict bridge and partly finished overpass. The distant shore is edged with trees and a row of six lights, some reflected in the water. At the lower right is a man who walks towards the right, while at left are two bare trees. Billowing clouds occupy the central square of the composition.
- Where Made
- Alphington, Melbourne
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching and burnishing on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Magnani paper with watermark: Romanesque ‘M’ with cross above; Magnani Acqueforti paper.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 228 x 310 mm
Matrix size: 230 x 310 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.141
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All state impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Edition printed by Martin King at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne).
- Summary Edition Information
- Five states. Edition of ten numbered impressions, 2001.
- Exhibitions
- University of Melbourne 2014: Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Parkville (Melbourne), The Piranesi Effect, 20 February – 25 May 2014, no. 43.
- University of Queensland 2014: University of Queensland Art Museum, St Lucia (Brisbane), Five Centuries of Melancholia, 30 August – 30 November 2014, APW workshop proof 2/2.
- Literature
- For an illustration of the painting The outlying districts, 2001–02, see Gavin Fry, Rick Amor, Beagle Press, Roseville, NSW, 2008, p. 132.
- Jenny Long, ‘The Piranesi Effect’, in Kerrianne Stone & Gerard Vaughan (eds), The Piranesi Effect, NewSouth Publishing (University of New South Wales), Sydney, 2015, pp. 48–50, illus. p. 49.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: eleven state impressions, numbered 1-1 through 1-5, 2-1, 2-3, 2-6, 3-3, 3-6, 4-6; AP 1/1.
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide: ed. 4/10 (20155G154).
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: APW workshop proof 2/2, on cream paper (2002.431.845).
- Comment
The subject of this etching is invented and is based on multiple sources, Amor’s aim being the creation of a generalized image of civic neglect and emptiness – but an image that also mirrored the existential emptiness of the alienated individual.
The artist’s interest in depicting urban backwaters has been sustained through a great number of drawn, painted and printed images, and is rooted as much in his sociopolitical beliefs as it is in his desire to go against the grain of the art of his day by choosing subject matter that is aesthetically challenging. For works by Amor on themes similar to that reflected in E.124, see, for example, Outlying district, 1995 (cat. no. E.097), The empty district, 1996 (E.105), and Peripheral landscape, 1998 (E.112).
The composition of E.124 was first worked out in a gouache, which then formed the basis of both the etching and a subsequent painting, The outlying districts, 2001–02 (Fry 2008); each of these versions contains small variations in detail.
In taking E.124 through its five states, Amor printed multiple impressions of three of the states, in order to work out the tonal and spatial construction of the composition, and to modulate its mood.
- Keywords
- Bridge, City peripheries, Overpass
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/the-outlying-districts/
Record last updated 16/02/2021