Image:
Frank BURGERS
On the Tamar 1 2022
woodblock print
1 – 28 February 2023
Gallery Shop
Benalla Art Gallery presents a selection of prints by local artist Frank Burgers in the Gallery Shop throughout February. The exhibition includes linocuts, woodblock prints, and copperplate etchings spanning the past decade, and traversing abstract expressionism, landscape and figurative works.
Burgers first explored printmaking, particularly copperplate etching, as a student at Ballarat College of Advanced Education (now Federation University) in 1984 and 1985, however a sustained printmaking practice was challenging with limited access to a press. In 2016, through the art and craft shop Shades of Art Burgers ran with his wife, he participated in a series of workshops resulting linocuts informed by pastel drawings he had been working on.
Around this period, Burgers also found some suitable wooden panels from an old bed head board, which became his first woodblock prints. He explains, “At the time my work was mostly figurative. The work is a response to battles with my conscience. On the one hand I took inspiration from emotional turmoil, on the other giving creative expression to complex feelings was a form of therapy.”
Following this series, a prolonged period of painting abstractions followed, however Burgers has returned to printmaking in recent years following an introduction to master printmaker John Loane. Discussing his return to printmaking, Burgers said, “John is a master printmaker and a terrific artist himself, specialising in lithography and intaglio printing. He has worked with some of the most prominent artists from the 70s to the present day, many of whom are represented by major national institutions. John himself won second at the ‘Castlemaine Experimental Printmaking Awards’ last year.”
“I had some copperplates left over from the shop, and with John’s encouragement (and access to a fully equipped printmaking workshop here in Benalla) I developed a number of plates, presented in this Gallery Shop exhibition.”
“Developing these plates was more involved then I remembered from my college days! Initially the results were rather disappointing, but as with all creative work, enormous amounts of perseverance and determined pursuit to find a satisfying image eventually gave results. Some plates took 8 or 9 proofs with substantial reworking of the plate in between, to get the image to work.”
Burgers has also recently returned to woodblock printing, with some assistance from an old friend. Burgers explains, “I got in touch again with a friend of mine, Stephen Anderson, who was enthusiastically working on some incredibly good wood block prints in Wodonga. Stephen, unbeknown to me, some years ago built a number of seriously good printing presses, one of which he has set up at home. One thing led to the other and when he offered the opportunity to print with him I jumped at the occasion.” Burgers current woodblock prints are a response to a recent family holiday to Tasmania.
Frank Burgers has exhibited extensively throughout Victoria and across Australia since 1989, including the solo exhibition Cadence staged at Hyphen Wodonga Library Gallery in 2022, and the group exhibition Northern Abstraction at Benalla Art Gallery in 2021. Now based in Wangaratta and practicing from his Bridge Street Studio in Benalla, Frank’s work is held in numerous collections including Albury Art Gallery, DalZotto Wines, and private collections. Frank Burgers is represented by Beechworth Contemporary.
All works in the Gallery Shop are available for purchase from Benalla Art Gallery,
or by contacting the Gallery on: T 03 5760 2619 or gallery@benalla.vic.gov.au