E.177 The waiting room 2016

• I. 1st state of 4

  

  Etching and burnishing. This interior setting is a large room with a window at the right and a wall partially blocking off the space; on the inside edge of the wall is an arrow pointing left. In the far left distance a man sits against the back wall; the window above him lets in light, which illuminates the top of his head, his shoulders, and the window sill. The image has been completed with etched hatching and cross-hatching and finished in all essential details.

  Impression on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-1’; lower centre: ‘The Waiting Room’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’16’.

• II. 2nd state of 4

  The square of light on the floor that comes from the open window at left has been burnished, as has the skirting board on the facing wall.

  Impression on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-2’; lower centre: ‘The Waiting Room’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’16’.

• III. 3rd state of 4

  

  A small pool of light has been burnished into the area above the step at left. The light that catches the window sill in the far left distance has been made narrower.

  Impression on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-3’; lower centre: ‘The Waiting Room’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’16’.

• IV. 4th and final state

  The vertical line demarcating the adjoining walls near the window at left has been strengthened with drypoint. The left contour of the left column has similarly been strengthened with drypoint. The front wall has been burnished around the centre. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-4’; lower centre: ‘The Waiting Room’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’16’.
  2. Undesignated impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Impression annotated in pencil around the margins with instructions for the printer: upper left: ‘Scrim wiped plate tone’; lower left: ‘try to pick out / figure a little / lighter [arrow pointing right]’; lower centre: ‘light areas hand wiped [four arrows pointing to relevant areas of the etching]’; upper right: ‘clean edges of / plate [arrow pointing left]’.

• IV.a. 4th and final state

  

  The vertical line demarcating the adjoining walls near the window at left has been strengthened with drypoint. The left contour of the left column has similarly been strengthened with drypoint. The front wall has been burnished around the centre. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• IV.b. Undesignated impression of 4th and final state, annotated in pencil with instructions to the printer

  

• Edition, 2016

  Edition of twenty numbered impressions, on wove BFK Rives 250 gsm paper, printed by Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne), September 2016. The edition included a bon à tirer impression, two artist’s proofs, two APW workshop proofs, and a presentation proof. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[status of impression]’ [or] ‘[1 through 20]/20’; lower centre: ‘The Waiting Room’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 16’. Chop mark embossed in lower right corner: ‘APW [within horizontal rectangle]’.

  Edition sheet size: 255 x 285 mm

• Edition impression, 2016 (Featured Image)

  

• Comment

  This etching is after an oil painted earlier in 2016 (not exhibited as of February 2017) but is oriented in reverse direction. There is also a study of the seated figure, drawn in conté crayon, as well as a monochrome watercolour of the whole composition. The interior setting is based on one of Amor’s photographs of Pinacotheca Gallery, in Waltham Place, Richmond (Melbourne), before its closure in 2002.

  From the thematic point of view, the subject is related to those works that depict interiors with waiting figures, such as Ante-room, 1993 (cat. no. E.076). Pinacotheca had occupied a former nineteenth-century warehouse, but here the interior appears of indeterminate date. What characterizes the space is its anonymous emptiness – an appropriate setting for a Kafkaesque drama of a man being made to wait for something unspecified to occur.

  The composition was basically resolved in the first state, but was taken through a series of tonal refinements with a burnishing tool to the third state, before the addition of drypoint accents in the fourth and final state.

  The work was commissioned by the Australian Print Workshop for its major fundraising effort, the exhibition Impressions 2016, which included prints by over 160 artists.