Biography

Sandi Hook is a regional artist living and working in North Queensland, Australia. Hook’s art practice has evolved into a focus on the natural environment. In her doctoral study those journeys of past explorers and artists into regions of rural Australia are significant. Hook has recently returned from journeys to North Queensland to record images of her interpretation of ‘place’. Hook acknowledges “local operations” as a way of seeing how the local contests the universal. This contest is shown with her use of the tropics in compositions that respond to North Queensland and other places in her travels.

Themed Panel (Suggested)

Artists – Explorers: Investigations into Visual Interpretations of ‘Place’.
Contemporary visual artists and early explorers have documented through image and text how they envisaged and interpreted ‘place’ in North Queensland, Australia. The significance of the project is that the postcolonial visiting of a place contributes to the way we look at ‘place’ as a site of transition. Lippard interprets ‘place’ as a ‘layered location replete with human histories and memories, and it is about connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, and what will happen there’ (Lippard, L 1997, p. 7). This makes the site memorable, connecting all cultures, including first nations, who have lived in a place over a long time and how this may create future memories and identities.

Understanding what has happened in Australia, on a particular ground, inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, brings new cultural stories. This builds the awareness of the deepening cultural and environmental layers of the region. The interests, attitudes and agendas of people living in the area from the 19th to 21st centuries produces differing ways of understanding and appreciating the multiple identities of North Queensland.

I analyse comparisons between the artist as explorer and early explorers in their quest to discover North Queensland, together with the documentation of responses of contemporary visual artists’ art-making processes and interpretations of place.  Documented responses from artists will provide a growing compilation of contemporary visual interpretation of place in North Queensland.

My creative visual practice relates to exploration and interpretation of place. Firstly, through the synthesis and documentation of artists and explorers of place, I make connections to find similar transitional paths. Secondly, I utilise the tools of the artist in the form of pertinent visual elements to interpret place through my artwork. I create on-site drawings and develop my art processes through experimental print techniques.