born Australia 1969
Artist's statement:
My photographs are constructed images made with found objects. This image is based around a souvenir thimble found in my local St Vincent de Paul shop in Springwood, the Blue Mountains. It had been part of someone’s larger thimble collection and has the words ‘Liberation of Kuwait Feb 1991’ printed in gold paint on the side.
I wondered how the thimble came to be in Springwood and who, in this whole wide world, had thought it was a good idea to design and produce, via a mass-produced, industrial process, such an object? How was it distributed? Was it perhaps in a party bag of trinkets given to returning soldiers to commemorate ‘victory’ in Iraq?
In setting up the thimble as a heroic monument to war I want to emphasise the intrinsic absurdity of this object and its symbolic intention. I am interested in how objects and images are engineered by governments to ‘manufacture consent’ for these wars. I have referenced the iconic image of the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, complete with crane arm and huge hook, because it became the definitive and enduring image of a second ‘victory’ in Iraq.
Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
