Merrepen Arts this week for Basil Hall Editions & Nomad Art

Basil Hall and Angus Cameron (from Nomad Art in Darwin) are working with ten artists from Merrepen Arts on the Daly River, 3 hours south west of Darwin this week. The monsoon arrived briefly as we arrived; then disappeared across to Queensland just as suddenly leaving one steamy workshop. Although most art centres have air conditioning these days, some of our etching operations have to be done outdoors because of smell and safety factors, so the laundry bag is going to be fairly unpleasant back in Canberra this Saturday night! Back to Art. The ten artists have mostly been making etchings with Leon Stainer or Basil since the early nineties, so it has been great to reunite with them and draw iconic images of the billabong on zinc plates in a variety of ways: hard ground, soft ground, photo etching and sugar lift being some of the approaches tried. This time Nomad is directly involved, as a Merrepen exhibition is slated for August in Darwin, so Angus is here assisting in the print room and also preparing information for a catalogue.