There is a US Facebook page called World Cyanotype Day and each year they put together an exhibition of cyanotype flags. As a spin-off from this Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper have started an Australian version of World Cyanotype Day on their Facebook page The Cyanotype in Australia. This year I decided to join in along with almost 30 other cyanotype artists.
I can’t say that I’ve done much cyanotype on fabric – I usually stick to paper – but the process is not much different, and it is easier to do. And a good idea if you want to do a larger cyanotype as dealing with large sheets of paper is always problematic. How nice, to just fold or roll your artwork up and put it in the post. Anyway, there was nothing large about our cyanotype flags as they were all 30 x 30 cm square.
The theme for the exhibition is ‘Rejuvenation’. My own flag is a text based one. The text speaks for itself. It would seem that the whole world is in need of rejuvenation. The baby image references humanity and the need for a new start after Covid takes its toll. The vegetation suggests the necessity of changes in human practice to alleviate climate change and is offered as a ray of hope.

The exhibition is at the KEPK gallery at Indooroopilly in Brisbane and finishes this weekend and should be at least open from 10 am -12 both days. There were major problems with this as Doug and Victoria had recently moved to Victoria where Covid cases were growing, so were now in lockdown! Going to Queensland wasn’t an option – so they missed the exhibition, and of course were not there to be with it which lessened the opening hours, although it was open by appointment. They have, however, put together a very nice catalogue of the exhibition.
Here are some photographs from the exhibition. Unfortunately I’m not certain who took the photos, but I think it was Keiko Goto and Gail Hoger Neumann.