‘Silence of the earth’
Janice McEwen,
2024, Ecoprint on paper
34 x 74cm
POA – please contact Janice to purchase this artwork on 0406927564

Through layering and incorporating text my work explores the interconnections of wild and living country and laments the loss and damage inflicted on it through beliefs of human exceptionalism. I am especially interested in how colonialism has created a cultural palimpsest, erasing ancient languages and knowledge and overlaying them with excuses for exploitation and destruction.
Where possible I use foraged materials from the particularly vulnerable places …sea country and the kelp forests, and high country and old growth native forests.

About the artist:
Born in Scotland I spent my early life in New Zealand. After graduating with a BA from the University of Canterbury I moved to the UK where I completed an MA at the University of Essex in Comparative Literature, with a thesis on Caribbean writers in exile in the UK. For several years following this I taught English and Communications and ran a small press fiction publisher, Lunatic Fringe.

In 1984 I returned to Australia where I worked in communications for many years then began a degree at National Art School in Sydney and in 2001 graduated with a B Fine Arts majoring in painting which strengthened my interest in post-colonial culture and in particular the cultural significance of the apex predator, the dingo for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities

This study took me to Darwin in the Northern Territory where my B Vis Hons at NTU, had a strong interest in performance and ‘The Longest Fence in the World’ the dingo fence with its similarities to the fences around detention centres Australia was erecting to keep refugees at bay.

I have been deeply influenced by the intricacies and responsibilities of Aboriginal law and culture and the primacy of cross species kinship. The tensions between economic opportunities/exploitation and cultural values of protection and sustainability are critical. Indigenous values, especially responsibility for country and cross-species kinship have provided me with positive alternatives to climate change and species extinction.

Six years ago I moved to Ireland reigniting my interest in Celtic cultures and earth based philosophies and belief systems, engaging with Michele O’Connor Connelly in a collaborative arts project on cross-species kinship around the kelp forest of Bantry Bay West Cork. This included a residency at Uillin, West Cork Arts Centre, and participation in the Kelp Congress, Lofoten International Arts Festival, Norway 2019.

In December 2019 I returned to Australia and settled in Melbourne, keen to continue my work. I began learning about eco printing with eucalyptus and joined Lucy Goosey art collective. My current work often uses foraged materials and is about the devastating forest fires increasing through global warming that are destroying Australia’s ancient old growth forests.

Instagram: @jmc8w8n