Over..and over..and over

Ann Newmarch
Australia
1945 – 2022

Over..and over..and over
from the series ... as the serpent struggles
1986
colour screenprint on paper
Place made
Prospect, Adelaide
Medium
colour screenprint on paper
State
3/10
Dimensions
43.4 x 59.6 cm (image a)
43.2 x 62.0 cm (image b)
43.3 x 59.5 cm (image c)
50.2 x 69.8 cm (each sheet)
Credit line
Gift of the family of Ann Newmarch 2024
Accession number
20243G15(a-c)
Signature and date
Signed and dated in margin of each sheet l.r., pencil “Newmarch 86”.
Provenance
The artist; by descent to Jessie Kerr, the artist’s daughter.
Collection area
Australian Prints
Copyright
Courtesy the artist

  • In 1986 Aboriginal issues and injustices inflicted by white Australians became a major focus of Ann Newmarch’s work, inspired (initially at least) by her frequent travel to outback areas, particularly around Coober Pedy, in the mid-1980s.  A story related to her by artist Chips Mackinolty also made a lasting impression on her: “I was told of a woman who was out of her camp when white men arrived in trucks and removed all the families to another site.  When she came back, she found only the tyre-tread marks and wept because she thought that the Rainbow Serpent has taken all her kin” (artist’s statement, Ann Newmarch: …as the serpent struggles, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 1988).  This story and Newmarch’s first-hand experience of numerous abandoned cars near the Stuart Highway, led to her series of paintings and screenprints …as the serpent struggles, in which wrecked and abandoned cares litter the landscape and tyre marks scarring the landscape metamorphose into the tracks of the rainbow serpent.  The cars, as symbols of white technology, refer to European settlers’ intrusion into and disregard for both the landscape and its original inhabitants.  The cars were also the means by which white people dislocated Aboriginal people from their ancestral lands and their family or community groups.

      

    Julie Robinson, Senior Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs (2024)

     

  • Ann Newmarch was a significant and influential figure in the arts in South Australia for over fifty years and, while best known for her screenprints, her practice also encompassed paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture, union banners, murals and community art projects. Her artistic practice was underpinned by a strength of conviction and rebellious streak, which saw her challenge conventions and break down many barriers in the art world. Recognised as a trailblazing feminist artist, she created works of art that tackled important political and social issues from the perspective of a woman and a mother.

    During the 1970s Newmarch rose to prominence in Adelaide as a founding and influential member of several collectives in Adelaide, including the Progressive Art Movement (1974–77), the Women’s Art Movement (1976–84) and the Prospect Mural Group (1978 – 84). Her works addressed issues such as the Vietnam War, the struggle of workers, uranium mining, and Australian independence from American influence. By the late 1970s her involvement in the women’s movement and her role as a mother of two young boys, saw the subject matter of women’s issues and motherhood/childhood taking a greater prominence in her oeuvre. Many of her works were created as screenprints, which could be made quickly and in large editions, enabling her ideas to reach a broad audience, beyond the traditional confines of gallery walls. Newmarch was also an influential teacher and inspiration to many other artists, both through her role as lecturer at the South Australian School of Art (1969 – 2000) and through her leadership in community art projects,  articularly in Prospect, where she made murals and initiated the practice of Stobie pole paintings.

    In 1997 Newmarch was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at AGSA, The Personal is Political, and her work is widely represented in Australian national and state collections. Newmarch is also recognised internationally – being represented in the collection of the British Museum, London, and in 2007 her work was exhibited in Los Angeles and New York in the ground-breaking exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, a global survey of feminist art. Newmarch, who was represented by nine works, was the only Australian artist included. In 2021 Newmarch’s work was celebrated in KNOW MY NAME: Australian Women Artists from 1900 to now at the National Gallery of Australia.

    A distinguished print-maker, photographer, painter and sculptor, in 1989 Newmarch received an Order of Australia Medal for her significant contributions to art and culture in this country.

    Julie Robinson, Senior Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs (2024)

  • Ann Newmarch: …as the serpent struggles/ David Kerr: Humdrum on the Highway

    Experimental Art Foundation, 1987
    Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 1988

  • Ann Newmarch

    Art Images Gallery, 2011

  • Ann Newmarch: the personal is political

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 15 August 1997 – 28 September 1997