Rosalind ATKINS

Rosalind Atkins is an artist specialising in printmaking. Highly skilled in the area, she taught for some time at Monash University Gippsland Campus in the printmaking department, supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students. Atkins works across both intaglio and relief printmaking techniques, including copper engraving, etching, wood engraving and drawing.

The concepts explored within Atkins’ practice stem from her interest in the environment, in particular trees. Having grown up in Terang, Victoria, the country’s landscape has profoundly impacted her view of the environment, especially concerning industry, consumption of trees, and the effects of clearing and re-landscaping the natural environment. Trees are also often planted to mark territories or to honour and memorialise. In addition, they are markers of sacred sites and hold strong cultural significance to Aboriginal people.

There is a direct relationship between the printmaking process of wood engraving and the ideas that inform Atkins’ work. In the print Mantracks, Atkins depicts a landscape of hilly terrain speckled with forest.  Human interference with the landscape is shown through the line which zigzags through sections of trees. This track carved out is our imprint on the land.

She has shown widely both in solo and group exhibitions, both in Australia and overseas. Her career extends over thirty years, and in this time, collaboration with other artists, poets and writers has been important to her practice. Atkins’ work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the British Museum, London.