Peta West is a practicing contemporary Australian printmaker whose work taps into the sublimity of the Australian landscape and diversity of life it supports. Working primarily with linoleum, West is renowned for her immersive large-scale prints that beguile audiences with their intricate detailing and depth. West’s prints are worlds unto their own, each a self-contained universe, where plants and animals appear in abundance.

Prior to printmaking, West was a photographer for over two decades, a medium which allowed her to develop an eye for composition, depth and balance. This initial training in darkrooms forever instilled in her a love for monochrome, as well as the tactile process of working an image out of a medium. Since taking up printmaking in 2016, her work has been steadily gaining the attention of galleries and collectors alike. Her recent exhibitions including: The Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Sydney, 2024; The Alice Prize, Alice Springs, NT, 2024; Linked (group show), Frances Keevil, Woolloomooloo, Sydney, 2024 and Alight (solo show), Frances Keevil, Woolloomooloo, Sydney, 2023. This year, her work Halcyon Song (2024) was highly commended in the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Prize. West has also recently been a finalist in the The Alice Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award and the Waverley Art Prize. Her work is held in many private collections in Australia and overseas.

Songlines (2024) brings together Peta West’s fourth body of work. Expansive monochromatic prints for which West is renown, are exhibited alongside new artistic directions, including drawings on paper and watercolours. Once more we are invited into landscapes imbued with meaning and exploding with life. Viewing the works, it is clear that not only does this exhibition showcase an expansion of West’s practice into new mediums and subject matter, but also her most refined monochromatic works to date.

Notions of interconnectedness and expansiveness are cornerstones of West’s practice. Her works are odes to the wonder of the natural world and the connectivity that binds all living things. Consequentially, West has persistently experimented with scale and realism. The results are immersive works to get lost in. Biophilia (2022-23) is arguably the pinnacle of these experimentations. Measuring 250 x 80 cm, the work brings together Old Coast Road
(2022) and Heathland II (2023). Black Cockatoos, West’s longstanding protagonists, feast on Banksia pods amongst Waratahs and Flannel Flowers. It is a panorama of epic proportions, inviting viewers to journey across and within the composition and thus experience the endless unfurling of life of the South Coast NSW.

In 2023, West journeyed to the Northern Territory, a trip which inspired many of the exhibited works. Moving away from the South Coast of NSW, Halcyon Song 2024), This is Jawoyn Country (2024) and Scared Shelter (2023) were opportunities for West to consider new subject matter; the flora and fauna endemic to Australia’s interior. What we see are entirely new ecosystems and landscapes that speak to the diversity of life supported in this vast country.

This exhibition also marks a returned interest in colour, an element West has previously dabbled in. Previous experimentations in colour are A Bower’s Nest (2021) and her Reduction Prints from Collection III: Nodding Orchid (2022) and Costal Shelter (2022). The works from this exhibition: Sacred Shelter (2023), Kaarak (2024) and Barraya (2024) incorporate watercolour in a way that allows West to stay true to her style of linoleum print making. The carving is simplified so that the watercolour acts as the mid tone range. The results are striking. Greens, blues and yellows are effervescent against the monochrome. Whilst the overall compositions are simplified, they remain captivating. Rather than being drawn in to a work, it seems as though the flora and fauna are reaching out to meet us.

West’s practice evokes the sublime. Often works that tap into this line of thought are undercut with a sense of unease, as the grandeur of the natural world tends to remind us of our own perceived insignificance. Western Art History has long celebrated the achievements of human civilisations and the worlds we construct for ourselves. As a result, sublime landscapes are portrayed with equal parts awe and fear. What West captures so beautifully is a sense of the sublime without fear. Life explodes before our eyes yet we are not alienated from it. Instead, West’s landscapes allow us to feel a part of the great web of life, giving us a sense of coming home.