As an artist I am inspired by where I live and stories, history and myths revealed in conversations with others and through personal research. I have found both the Mokoan and the Winton Wetlands to be places with many and varied histories, traces of which overlay as a palimpsest, on the land today.
Over many visits to the wetlands I have had an opportunity to witness and contemplate the space, what the landscape has revealed to me and how it connects with my gathered knowledge.
Through documentary photography I have made records of my personal response to place. These images are raw data which I then review to construct visual narratives in the form of handmade artists books.
In these works my aim is to use the book as a way to share my experiences, a point of view and the stories inspired by the landscape.
ARTWORKS
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Once Was + Story Trees
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Artists Book (Concertina format)
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Once Was + Story Trees (Close-up Detail)
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Artists book (Concertina format)
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Concertina Books (Left+Right views)
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Artists book
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Once Was (concertina books flat detail)
- Date: 2024
- Medium: Artists book
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Story Trees – (round format)
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Artists book
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Water Gallery
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Photograph
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: Scar tree near Humphries Hill
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Photograph
- Size: Variable
- Artist: Doug Spowart
- Title: At the tank’s intersection
- Date: 2023
- Medium: Photograph
- Size: Variable
ARTIST’S BIOGRAPHY and their broader art practice
Dr Doug Spowart has an extensive involvement in Australian creative industries as an artist, educator, curator, commentator and reviewer. In 2012 completed a PhD on the topic of photobook self-publishing in the digital age that he followed up in 2014 with a fellowship at the State Library of Queensland where he researched the presence of photography in the artists’ book discipline.
He has extensively researched, judged and commentated on photography, the artists book and the photobook in Australia and New Zealand including presentations at the Auckland Festival of Photography, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and the Vienna Photo Book Festival.
He has published 3 volumes of the COMPENDIUM of Australian & New Zealand Photobooks that have been launched at major photobook events in Australia and New Zealand. Spowart is also the content producer for the Antipodean Photobook Blog and Instagram account where he promotes internationally activities, events and publications emerging from our local region.
Spowart and his partner Victoria Cooper curated a collection of Australian and New Zealand photobooks to accompany the Martin Parr collection at Tate Britain. And in 2019 he coordinated World Photobook Day events at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.
ART GROUP MEMBERSHIPS
- GANEAA
- National Association of the Visual Arts
- Numerous Art Galleries
Contact Details
- Email: Greatdivide@a1.com.au
- Location: Benalla
