Jeff Gardner – Printmaker
1960 Melbourne, Australia
1979 – 1982 Victorian College of Arts, Melbourne
Bachelor of Arts, Fine Art – Painting
1998 RMIT Melbourne, Small Business NEIS
Jeff Gardner has held fifteen solo exhibitions and contributed to forty plus group exhibitions. Between 2000 to 2013 Gardner sold his etchings, illustrated poems and books through the Victorian Art Centre Market. A successful venture, his artwork was
collected by thousands of private collectors from all over the world. Gardner’s artwork is represented in hospital collections, including the Olivia Newton-John Wellness Centre, the Freemason’s and the Monash Medical Centres.
Articles referencing Gardner have appeared in publications including The Weekly Times – Country Living, Correspondanses Oceaniennes, neighbourhood newspapers and most recently he has the honour of being a regular contributor to Daylesford Macedon Life Magazine where his poetry and printmaking feature quarterly. Jeff’s illustrated poetry books are held in the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria.
Whilst a student of painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, Gardner was often found in the life drawing room or print studio. Not officially enrolled in Printmaking, he learnt the basic printmaking techniques from technicians and fellow students. Four years after leaving college he bought his first small etching press and began to experiment with monoprints. This process involved drawing ink onto various plates, manipulating the ink and printing a single image. Gardner began to experiment with dry point prints – scratching and engraving images directly into the plate. Later he combined the two methods to create painterly images employing plate tone to give the images richness and depth. His progression led naturally to acid etching the images into copper plates and experimenting with aquatint. Gardner has collaborated with Peter Lancaster on the lithograph, Full-Time Kite and John Westmore on the screen print, The Merry-Go-Round. Jane Rusden worked with Gardner as a Studio Assistant on a large body of dry points. Gardner’s interest in making books led him to learn typesetting from retired Printer, Allan Jones. Gardner is an experienced Artisan Picture Framer.
An addicted visual diary scribbler of words and pictures, Gardner is always in search of ideas to realise as prints.
Kareen Anchen – Cascade Art
The Circles
“After art school and by the mid 1980’s, I had experimented with many forms of expression and styles in painting and printmaking. I kept being drawn to the circle as a distillation of the human form. At the time, my partner who was studying teaching had a book on the process of children’s drawing. Beginning with a scribble pond (a Jackson Pollock style drawing) children, as they become more dexterous then form a circle or oval. They develop the circle into a face by adding lines. Then in time arms and legs appear, then fingers and toes emerge. The figure can be a mother, father, sister, brother, or themselves. The figure is then placed into a landscape. A line for the sky, a line for the ground – a house, a dog, a cat. For me, the penny dropped. I did not want to copy children’s drawings but explore this process as an adult. In time and by repeating the figures over and over my figures began to change. They grew arms outstretched and sometimes feet. I pushed the drawings and ‘The Poet’ figure emerged. Then ‘The Philosopher’ and ‘The Shoulder Bird.’ The landscape filled with strong personal symbols – the house, the magic tricks, cars and kid’s toys. The bee represented the pulse of life, swallows represented ‘joy,’ juggling balls became the earth thrown into space. An extensive list of personal symbols goes on. I drew from my life, imagination and memory. My subconscious was always in play and often surprised me. Is this surrealism? I’m not sure. To me it goes to the very heart of self-expression”.
Jeff Gardner 2021