NoteWorthy
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (detail), copperplate print on paper
NoteWorthy
SLV fellowship project 2022-2023
“NoteWorthy” presents a visual history of live music culture in Melbourne, representing the complex interconnections of music performance and communities as a series of non-figurative and representational copperplate prints on paper.
The copperplate etchings were created in collaboration with Melbourne musicians Raul Sanchez (Magic Dirt/River of Snakes/Midnight Woolf), Jem Moloney (DEAD), Rhys (Future Suck), Grace (Future Suck/Blonde Revolver), Katie Scott (Howl At The Moon), Jason Fuller (Goatsound Studios/Blood Duster/The Ruiner/Burn The Hostages), Kim Volkman (X/Kim Volkman and the Whisky Priests) and Zoe Hunting (Premium Fantasy). The musicians and I used broken and discarded musical equipment – including microphone heads, guitar pick-ups, cracked cymbals and guitar strings – as dry-point tools to create a web of interweaving marks in two 80x60cm copperplates. To create the final artwork, I made prints by first printing from one of the copperplates, printing a second layer on the same sheet of paper with the second plate. The resulting montage of interweaving and interconnected engravings reflects the endurance and resilience of the music and the artists who create and perform it. This is in the context of reflecting the ongoing sustainability and health of live music culture embodied in and as the final artwork.
The artwork – created for my State Library Victoria "Tate Adams Memorial Residency at Baldessin Press & Studio" Fellowship 2022 – illustrates the enduring resilience of live music culture in a post-pandemic period. Printed and developed at Baldessin Studios in St Andrews and informed the vast resources of State Library Victoria and my professional and personal connections within the music industry, “NoteWorthy” offers a unique perspective to related debates in the live music sector from the position of the live music community in a valuable contribution to the overarching discourse of Melbourne's live music culture in a post-pandemic era.
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (front detail), copperplate print
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (inside detail), copperplate print
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (inside detail), copperplate print
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (inside detail), copperplate print
Zo Damage 2023, “NoteWorthy” (inside detail), copperplate print