Cressida Campbell

Pyrmont 1984
woodcut, printed in watercolour
Collection of Cressida Campbell

Campbell’s earliest works in the exhibition date to her formative studies of Japanese printmaking: Pyrmont 1984, Glebe 1985 and Through the windscreen 1986. In each of these works, the interior world is conflated with the exterior world: a concept that could be likened to a Japanese design principle in which the outside world is brought inside.

In this work, closed balcony doors frame the composition and obstruct the view from an interior room to the suburban landscape beyond. The compositional device of the ‘obstructed view’ is similarly employed in Torii Kiyonaga’s The third month, cherry blossom viewing at Mt Asuka (Sangatsu Asukayama no hanam) 1784.