Jenny PETERSON
1.
Helmet, 2002, Etching, aquatint, electric grinder, Ed 10/40, 55 x 39 cm, Latrobe Regional Gallery Collection, purchased from the Print Council of Australia, 2002.
2. Merge, 2015, Intaglio and relief print, Ed 15/35, 49 x 43 cm image, 70 x 56 cm sheet, Latrobe Regional Gallery Collection, purchased from the Print Council of Australia, 2015.
3. Beer Box, 1996, Hand coloured collagraph, Ed 2/5, 50 x 38 cm, Latrobe Regional Gallery Collection, gift of the artist, 1998.

Jenny PETERSON

 

Jenny Peterson is a local contemporary artist specialising in printmaking. Living and working in Boolarra, Gippsland, Peterson often uses found objects and flora as a basis of her work to create monoprints, collagraphs, etching and nature prints.

Peterson was one of many artists in Gippsland who received training through the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education, which is now the same location where she teaches in printmaking at Federation University, Gippsland campus.

An essential process in Peterson’s practice is the process of collecting. She is especially interested in discarded metals from road signage and scraps left behind from industry and construction. The traces of an object become embedded within each abrasion and scratch to the surface. By printing with these scraps, Peterson reclaims each object. In doing so, her work becomes an immediate response to her surroundings and a permanent record containing the memory of her journey with that object and simultaneously the life it had before.

In contrast to other bodies of work by Peterson that explore the inevitable yet fortuitous markings that accumulate on the surface of a found object, Helmet is a work conceived of much more intentional and imposed markings. Part of a series called Tin Suit, Peterson explores the Australian iconography of corrugated iron and the Ned Kelly story. The use of a deep red coloured ink in Helmet references rust, which speaks about age, weathering and history. The pigments in the etching also allude to colours found in Australian landscapes, rural and farming land.

Peterson’s work is held in many public galleries across Australia, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, State Library of Victoria, Gippsland Art Gallery and Latrobe Regional Gallery.