Printmaking

Linocut Prints

With two main series of prints, Visual Biographies and The Swanston Street Series, Emma has exhibited prints in regional Victoria, across Melbourne and participated in local and international artist print exchanges.

Below:
Emma Armstrong-Porter
Breaking out of the Psych Ward to go to the Tote, 2022
Linocut on Paper
42 x 56 cm
Ed. 15
Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria for Melbourne Now 2023

“Lines carved into lino like ink into skin, this piece explores the use of tattoos as a form of
autoethnography. The artist uses semiotics and symbols to create a narrative.
Drawing comparison to prison tattoos, Armstrong-Porter speaks of institutionalisation in the Australian Public Mental Health system.
Cathedrals and Kremlins are tattooed onto prisoners’ bodies to indicate time spent incarcerated. In this case Melbourne Pub has replaced the church as a public landmark.
The swallow tattoo traditionally symbolised a safe return home and speaks of freedom.
Breaking Out of the Psych Ward to go to the Tote is a visual story that elicits curiosity in a Melbourne audience by presenting familiar and local iconography.”

Above: Install image of the Swanston Street Series at the Dax Center for Queer My Head Exhibition, part of the 2022 Midsumma Festival Program.
Below: Exhibition text by Jay Hayes, Curator, Queer My Head

“This series comprises 15 images of tattooed hands that were created over 6 years during the artist’s multiple in-patient stays in acute psychiatric facilities and pre- vention centres. Inspired by the tattooing practices of incarcerated peoples, Armstrong-Porter developed a symbolic language to express the hardships of institutionalisation.

Like pushing ink into skin, the carving of these images into lino blocks, imbues them with the act of bodily self-inscription. The resulting prints offer a visceral document of the artist’s encounter with the systemic inadequacies of institutions of ‘care’.

The Swanston Street Series zine interpolates these images with stark personal narratives to expose what the artist describes as:

‘…a flawed and discriminatory public mental health system; one that is unable to meet the needs of the people it serves’

Armstrong-Porter’s work bravely illuminates issues for LGBTIQA+ and neurodivergent users of public mental health services, with the hope of instigating change.”

See the zine here.

Linocut Printing Workshops

Emma has facilitated linocut printing workshops at Boom Gallery Geelong, NOIRdarkroom, Studio DAX (at the Dax Center, Parkville), and Figment Festival Geelong. For the 2014 Figment Festival she created and facilitated an interactive community mural project, Lino Inc, where participants were invited to sketch onto, carve into and print this one-of-a-kind, collaborative, GIANT lino plate.

Above: Documentation of Lino-Inc workshop at 2014 Figment Festival Geelong.
Photos by Jessica Schwientek.