La enseñanza de la geografía en Europa y la educación en

This series is made up of large scale woodcuts created on plywood panels and printed on Japanese paper. These works are larger than life portraits of my son‟s and my own face. The use of the woodcut technique for this series replicates the frustration of the experience of motherhood at this stage. Woodcut at this scale is

Figure 55: Gabrielle Falconer, Head Shot I, 2009

104 a very physical technique and the marks suggest a ragged expressiveness as well as repetition and an almost overworked quality. In these works there is also an element of aggression where the artist‟s struggle with the tough and splintery wooden surface is evident. At times my cutting was frantic and physically painful. The force and determination of this cutting reinforces a perception of myself as riling against the strictures of motherhood. In this series the

layers of saturated colour create a simplicity of form and intent and a distillation of the expressive markmaking.

The photographs for this series were selected from many taken over a four year time period. In some of the images I can recognise the emotion expressed while in others I have tried to understand the

expression through the process of making the print. The notion of time and the length of time it takes to create one of these images is important for this series particularly but also for this whole project. While the image captures just a fraction of time in the life of my son and myself and drawing these faces onto the boards was similarly speedy and gestural, using large brushes and Indian ink. Often I would have to wait until the right moment to draw onto the boards or scratch into plates in the case of other series. The tension and excitement of

Figure 56: Gabrielle Falconer, Head Shot II, 2009

Figure 57: Gabrielle Falconer,

cutting into a fresh and already beautifully textured wooden board or scratching a laboriously prepared steel or copper plate combined often with cups of coffee created the required mental state for this work. Similarly the challenge of drawing at that scale a face that I knew so intimately put me in a nervous and highly alert mood where I could work extremely fast and focussed. This was appropriate for this work that approximates a mother‟s highly charged looking and hyper- alertness.

Figure 58: Gabrielle Falconer, Head Shots IV, V, VI, 2011

However, ironically it often took many hours to cut the image into the board. During this process I concentrated on the type of cuts made and how they expressed my emotional response to that image of my son. The cutting was also a particularly intense experience and cathartic to a degree. The time taken to do the cutting meant also that I could really focus my attention on what I felt about this image of my son and in turn resolve some of the confusion I felt when initially looking at his expressions. Although this sounds like therapy, in an artistic sense, I was gaining an insight into how the intimate portrait can express the insights of the artist gained through the process of making. When I compare the original

106 photographs to the final images I can see how implicit my response is within the markmaking. For example in figure of a happy and goofily smiling boy in braces, the joyful and exuberant marks and ease of cutting are evident. This is also expressed through the composition that exaggerates the mouth and seems to be pushing outward from the picture frame.

In Head Shot VII his neck jaggedly ends as if his head is severed and although this was accidental to a degree, it remained without change as it represents a movement away from more controlled and refined processes to the bluntness and brutality of cutting into the stubborn grain of plywood sheets. Towards the final stages of making this series I would select particular sheets of plywood that were harder to cut. Instead I was required to awkwardly chip at the wood with little cuts as the tools couldn‟t run smoothly.

Figure 59: Gabrielle Falconer,Head Shot VII,

The final image of this series (Figure 61) is a reworking of one of my son‟s drawings. He created this image as a self-portrait and it was then drawn up on the plywood and made into a print. This image is intended to capture the collaboration between my son and myself. The style of drawing is different from all the other images in the exhibition and represents his taking control of the project of representing his life and indeed control over his life generally. The image is of a tentative and large eyed creature alone in a landscape with mountains in the background. The image poignantly illustrates the vulnerability of the individual leaving home and facing the challenges of being in the world without the protection of childhood.

Figure 60: Gabrielle Falconer, Head Shots IIX, XI, X, 2011

108 Figure 61: Gabrielle Falconer /Hugh Falconer, Head Shot XI, 2011