Islands of Consternation By Ralph Kiggell Written for the International Triennial of Graphic Arts. Prague, Czech Republic. These works of consternation portray an emotional imprint of human intervention on islands where pristine natural ecologies of flora and fauna had evolved. They reflect on various locations where the artist has been living and working over the last few years: Australia, where he was born; Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island; and Mallorca, in the western Mediterranean. The artist sees these three areas as sharing several common points. They are all islands that evolved to some extent in isolation until recent times when they were irrevocably disrupted by outside forces. Australia is a vast sea bound continent that was colonized by a distant people. Hokkaido is an island whose indigenous people possessed a significantly different culture until the Japanese pushed into this frontier region a century or so ago. The third island, Mallorca, is experiencing the effects of

globalization, a flood of financial investment and construction developments resulting European Union. These outside influences have impacted on the island environments, leaving irreversible scars on the landscape, the people and the ecology. Crothers sees analogies between these island environments and the human spirit. The forces of artificial technologies, the media and the march of progress, are steadily eroding individuality and the diversity of thought. For this recent series initial experiments were made by ink transferal directly from body to block, or by using hand to paint onto the wood block. These intuitive, almost subconscious, energy marks were then overlain with a series of symbolic images together with a text of thoughts or murmurings. The symbolic images are sometimes direct or sometimes personal and obtuse but in each case act as signposts to another level of interpretation. They have crystallized from a kaleidoscope of personal experiences and pervading social issues emerging from these

island environments. It is the aspect of time, the transience of image and the different forms it may assume that is important within this installation. In this series of large prints, he works as energetically as ever, cutting away at his woodblocks, from which he prints successively to leave an emotionally charged image on the paper. The wood blocks have been cut and gouged in a free and expressive manner with a variety electric tools from grinders, drills, molars to conventional chisels. During this project the physical exertion, mind state and act of cutting then printing from the block are all of great importance to the dynamism and energy emanating from the work. As before, he uses his pigments and colour consummately and sensitively in a partnership with the paper to create images of flowing potency. An important new element of his recent work is his increasing emphasis on placing the gouged and chiseled blocks in unison with the prints. In these installations, he creates an emotional bond between the carved and printed image, which then

draws the viewer into a composite transfer of energy. Such a transfer reminds us of the artist's thoughts on the layering of imprinted memories and sensations, and more deeply to the cycle of death and rebirth.