Chrissie Ianssen
Resume
Chrissie has solid experience in workshop delivery and teaching, project delivery, community engagement within the arts, and as a practising artist in her own right, after years of freelance creative production and studio practice.
She has taught children, designed and delivered programs to students within the university environment, facilitated digital camera, photoshop and zine making workshops in the Barkindji Community of Willcannia and Broken Hill, and designed and delivered zine making workshops to youths within Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre. Chrissie has also worked for Kaldor Projects in delivering workshops. In addition, she has produced large-scale community projects, such as New Neighbours, which was a collaborative, democratic space in Parramatta, working alongside refugees.
Chrissie was the recipient of the Parramatta Artists' Fellowship in 2010. She won the commission from Lane Cove Council to design the street furniture now featured throughout the main plaza. She was also commissioned by Blacktown City Council to create and install a large suspended public artwork in the city centre in 2013.
phone 0431 439 222
email cj.ianssen@gmail.com
Q & A with Chrissie Ianssen (February 2017)
1. What do you know about the Workshop Arts Centre?
My mother taught here during the 1970’s, when I was about 4. I used to come along to classes, but was able to have the run of the centre – and have great memories of making all sorts of artworks in the print and ceramics studio. I still have my first firing – a clay donkey.
For some time, I have wanted to share the Renaissance painting technique taught to me by artist Lukas Kandel. I would prefer to share with people who have a little experience in painting, ie in colour matching and mixing colour, or at least who feel confident to dive in! The Willoughby Workshop art centre caters to people with a wide range of experience, and so I thought it would be a great place for the workshop.
2. What can people expect when they attend your workshop?
Plenty of discussion and sharing of knowledge around renaissance painting and history! The first time I used this technique, I made a copy of Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding, partly because I was fascinated with its ambiguous back-story, and partly because I have always found Van Eyck’s depiction of faces quite strange and wanted to see whether I could understand how he saw that, through my rendition of his vision.
The workshop will be very hands on. We’ll cook rabbit skin glue and whiting to make our gesso painting surface, and there will be elbow grease involved, as we’ll sand our dried surfaces down to a lovely smooth finish. Dust masks are imperative!
3. What currently inspires your work?
At the moment, my work feels multitudinous. I somehow always manage to straddle several strands of interests, and hope to bring them together one day. How does one merge hard edge, abstract painting with slow colour build up and layering, in the depiction of space on a flat surface? There are direct links in my mind! Conceptually I have always been fascinated by vernacular architecture in Sydney, and how Sydney homes show traces of migration from other places.
4. Have you any mentors or teachers that have influenced your practice?
Lukas Kandel, a Czech painter, taught me the technique I’ll share at the Easter workshop. His work focuses on the labour intensive surface preparation and thin layering of colour that we’ll get a taster of.
But I also have been influenced by the work of Josef Albers, the Bauhaus teacher and colourist. His work taught me that colour cannot exist on its own, that all colours are relative to everything around them. His work also made me realize that hard edge abstraction is closely tied to observation of the world around us, and directly represents our visual world.
5. Are there any exhibitions that you would encourage people to visit?
The Penrith regional Gallery is putting on an exhibition of Australian abstraction in March, titled Visions of Utopia, and featuring the works of Australian abstractionists. I will be supporting the exhibition with a live painting performance, for three days, at the entrance of the gallery, on the 17th, 18th and 19th of March. www.penrithregionalgallery.org
6. What is the one tool/supply that you can’t leave home without?
I always carry a notebook and pen, and surprise surprise, my phone. Google is great for on the run research!