2020 marked a decade of the Iain Turnbull Memorial Award at the Queensland College of Art, an annual award that recognises an outstanding engagement with printmaking and print culture at the college.

Enrolling at QCA in 2001 aged 35, Iain Turnbull graduated with 1st Class Honours, majoring in Printmaking, in 2005; sadly in late 2006 he was diagnosed with cancer, which finally led to his premature death in 2009 just two weeks before his forty fourth birthday. The Award, established by Iain’s family and his former partner Jennifer Lowrey, celebrates Iain’s life and the role that the printmaking program at QCA played in his education and personal development in the form of financial assistance to help a student further their own creative practice. Selection of the shortlisted candidates is based on wide-ranging criteria, including evidence of social responsibility as well as technical competence. Each candidate is personally interviewed, and the winner announced at the annual QCA graduate exhibition

The 2020 Turnbull fellow is Dr Nicola Hooper. Dr Hooper has completed over 10 years of study with QCA during which time she has generosity shared her skills to undergraduate students within QCA’s print courses. Hooper’s exploration of lithography early on in her studies extended her drawing practice and she has since determinedly pursued the technique and its potential for rendering the hand-drawn mark. Hooper’s prolific practice has been animated by her passionate interest in the relationship between humans and animals, specifically in regards to zoonosis an area of interest that is particularly relevant given our recent ‘corona-virus’ experiences. Hooper’s lithographs successfully combine whimsy and dread to draw the viewer into her work. Deploying the long history of lithography’s relationship with publishing Nicola has migrated her work into book form, creating unique-state artists books and commercially published storybooks. Hooper’s unorthodox paper sculptures and complex prints continue to make their presence felt in exhibitions and across installation environments, in a recent multi-venue touring solo exhibition across Australian regional galleries.

Dr Hooper joins a now celebrated list of QCA graduates who employ print as a critical tool in their studio practice. These are: Ana Paula Estrada (2019), Mathew Newkirk (2018), Dr David Jones (2017), Grace Collinson (2016), Dr Jude Roberts (2015), Dr Tim Mosely (2014), Paul Eves (2013), Elyse Taylor (2012) and Liana Evans & Jessica Row (2011).

The past decade of fellows has revealed an emerging body of artists whose employment of printmaking in their studios practice is as diverse as the spread of the fellows are. Mathew Newkirk, David Jones and Elyse Taylor continue to demonstrate an outstanding and proficient engagement with silk-screening, intaglio and relief respectively. Ana Paula Estrada’s and Tim Mosely’s practices embrace artists books and each continue to draw critical acclaim on the international stage. Nicola Hooper and Jude Roberts both draw from the autographic nature of lithography and have attracted critical attention nationally.

To celebrate this decade of fellows and the life of Iain Turnbull, Queensland College of Art is presnting an exhibition of recent work by the fellows until 8 October titled “decennium – the Ian Turnbull Memorial Award, 2011-2021” . Leading up to the exhibition will be a series of public talks by a number of the fellows presenting and discussing their recent work.

For more information please contact Dr Tim Mosely at t.mosely@griffith.edu.au

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