Video transcript
ARTEXPRESS 2024 - Student interview - 03. Gene Richards

GENE RICHARDS: I'm Gene Richards. I studied visual arts for HSC 2023, and I attended Normanhurst Boys High School.

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So my body of work is an exploration of different escape mechanisms that we go through as we grow up, and it's more or less going through different forms of maturity and different media that we go through and use. But, originally, I was making a whole bunch of sketches with other items I was familiar with. I definitely want to reference some albums that I enjoyed a lot. And that was something that was non-negotiable for this work.

Like, in the first work, I believe there's like a LEGO Ninjago character, a couple of toys, plushies, a Rubik's cube and whatnot, because I feel like that's a very recognisable items and still have a personal connection to me. So you can still show that identity to the mark or whoever your audience might be.

Then my second work, it's more focused on video games, so I've put a Nintendo Wii console, Xbox 360 controller, the Wii remote. I think there's a CD disc of 'Tomb Raider' and whatnot, just to show that identity as well.

And finally, in the music-based one, I put a handful of instruments. I think I put a guitar and a flute in there, and then I put a CD cover of Charli XCX's 'Pop 2' and Kanye's 'Yeezus' because, personally, I'm pretty-- I rather enjoy those albums and I wanted to put them in there. There's also a Kiss tee on the table, so just wanted to show that part of an identity.

Because it's a lino print, so I would be working off a lino block, and I'd need to get a design, put it onto it, carve it out and print it. Specifically, for my work, with the whole part with newspaper, that was never part of the plan until 3 weeks or a month until the due date. Because I had noticed that, when I was printing, a lot of the times, it just wasn't coming out clearly.

Originally, I was using an oil-based ink and a rougher type of paper, and that wasn't coming out clearly after a while. Then I switched things to a water-based ink and switched around to different papers. I was trying all sorts of different cleaning methods, and none of them were coming out clear enough to a quality I needed.

During that process of cleaning the ink off, I had ended up just doing a sacrificial print, or a waste print, onto newspaper just to get most of the ink off so I don't need to spend as much time wiping the ink off the actual lino block. And in those prints, it ended up turning out the most clearest, ironically. So then I just ended up going with newspaper because of that.

Because I remember when I was trying to grab inspiration for this work, I did visit the Art Gallery of NSW, and I think it's in the red room, or the rooms with the painted red walls on the first floor, just walking in there. And the smaller, the more shaded room in there, there was a whole bunch of etching, a bunch of etching prints in there. And I just really liked how the texture was built up there.

I don't remember the artist specifically, but I think I credited whoever they were. And it's just, how you can build so much texture within printmaking was really interesting to see. And, of course, Ricky Swallow with his 'Killing Time', and just seeing how raw a print-- how raw a still life work can be.

And for some advice to other people who are doing printmaking as well, for the start of the process in making that work, definitely sketch any ideas, write things down, anything that seems partially viable, write it down because you can always build on those ideas later. And you don't want to think, 'Oh, I forgot something that could have been pretty good.'

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