Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery on Wednesday 5 June at 5.30pm

Relinquishing control by Jacklyn Peters and Tamsin McLure runs from Wednesday 5 June to Sunday 23 June 2024.

This exhibition explores the relinquishing of control in the creative process through paintings and drawings that build on the Process Art movement of the 1960s and 70s. The works are introspective and speculative, concerned with the artist’s willingness to create work without knowing what the end will be and to take each decision as it comes.

The tally mark is used by Peters as a key motif to represent time in her work. To read these works, the viewer is asked to imagine each mark as a footstep the artist has taken, a step that captures a specific moment in time, whether slow or fast, calm or agitated. In nature, the effects of wind and rain remove matter to create new forms. Peters’ process is a kind of reverse erosion. The application of marks and brushstrokes is built to create forms that capture emotions felt and thoughts imagined, embedding them firmly and permanently in line, shape, colour and light.

At no point in the process is it known where the artwork will end since the marks first applied determine the placement of the following marks. Process based art is about both the process and the product. It requires a level of trust in one’s own experience, though one must also relinquish control to acknowledge that in the end what will happen will happen.

McLure is concerned with our sources of identity and security, and the necessity for relinquishing control to play—without fear of failure. The work is begun without a clear end in mind; the creative process is a journey of experimentation and exploration. McLure makes a deliberate choice to work with what is already there, often recycling or redeeming discarded materials. Faces are a repeated motif, speaking to the act of identity creation through our choices, moment by moment.

While fear of failure can be stagnating and paralysing, the artists in this exhibition embrace the security of trusting the process they follow, finding the freedom to create uninhibited works.

Join the artists in a workshop, Saturday 8 June 2–4pm

Playing without fear of failure—A workshop in oil pastels

A fun and relaxed art workshop, open to the community, in which participants will have the opportunity to make an abstract drawing with oil pastels on an already painted surface.

We will begin with a general discussion about what fears inhibit us from playing with new ideas or processes when creating work, and what we consider success or completion to look like. Next, we will put some of our discussion into practise as we use oil pastels, often considered a childish medium, to play with colour and pattern, over an existing surface. We will be able to reflect on how we make decisions in the art making process and in the rest of our lives, in a welcoming and informal environment.

Join the artists in a second workshop, Saturday 15 June 2–4pm

A warm and relaxed art workshop open to the community, in which participants will have the opportunity to learn to create portraits from a single line drawing, and to turn these into wearable art.

We will begin with a general discussion about how we see our identity and how we can represent or encapsulate aspects of our identity through Visual Art. Next, we will put some of our discussion into practise as we learn to simplify a portrait into a single line drawing. We will do this over the top of existing watercolours to add mood and vibrancy to our artworks. Finally, we will turn our drawings into pins that we can wear, using recycled materials.

Jacklyn Peters, Outback, after Larter, 2019, watercolour, acrylic, pencil and collage on paper, 29 x 38cm. Photo by Ian Hill

Tamsin McLure, Untitled (Time well spent), 2023, oil pastel and acrylic on paper, 60 x 50cm.