Rowena Dring

limited edition prints of drawings, 2010

From the autumn of 2009 until the end of winter 2010, I lived in a chateau in the south of Burgundy. The property, originally a 13th century fortification built upon a Roman temple, has over the centuries been rebuilt and altered, becoming a tapestry of interwoven histories.

What was once a pleasure garden and summer palace to a large and profitable estate been diminished as a result of industrialization and war. The chateau now faces an uncertain future with plans to build a high-speed railway through the property. The faded beauty of the estate and its poetic history, which in many ways is a time capsule of modern European history, are at the centre of my new works.

Four of the drawings that I made during this time are now available as a limited edition of six prints with two artist’s proofs on a large and small scale.

In the fall of 2008 I traveled through Cambodia, an astounding country to which I hope to return. Asides from the incredible depth of colour of the landscape; the sheer scale & beauty of the temples of Ankor Wat, the remnants of French colonial architecture of Phnom Penh - the thing that most struck me was the absence of Cambodians my age. An entire generation is missing.

Growing up I remember my Grandparents speaking in hushed tones of the “Lost Generation”, the men killed in the 1914-1918 World War, which included my great-grandfather and great-uncles. It takes a long time for a nation to recover from such a loss. How long will it take for Cambodia to recover from the genocide? A country that in 1979 had no Doctors, Teachers, Dentists and Lawyers left?

Choeung Ek, once a former orchard about 17km south of Phnom Penh, is better known as “The Killing Fields” where the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 17,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Mass graves containing 8,895 bodies were discovered here after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Only a third of the site has been excavated. Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial garden. Buddhist monks tend flower beds around a stupa, filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. Plants and grasses now cover the pits that remain from which the bodies were exhumed, like a bizarre arrangement of ornamental ponds. This series of images is in memory of the lost generation of Cambodians.

Four of these images are available as a limited edition folio, with the proceed going to NGO Cambodian Women's and Children’s charities.

limited edition prints of photographs, 2008

Arizona's ghost towns are monuments to man's courage, tenacity and perhaps even foolishness in his search for wealth. Whatever their design, intent or purpose, when their existence was no longer profitable they slipped into the category of ghost towns; the inevitable by-products of the developments of gold, silver, copper, and other mineral deposits in Arizona.

Course of Empire, Ghost Towns of Arizona is a limited edition of prints from photographs taken while I was road tripping with a friend through California and Arizona in 2006.

The title alludes to the work Thomas Cole, a 19th century English painter who settled in America and is thought to be the founder of the Hudson River School. This ghost town is called Ruby and at the time I visited had a population of 2, one being a rather scary man by the name of Sun Dog. The town is located about 15 miles off the highway, close to the Mexican border town of Nogales. To get there was a treacherous drive on a non-maintained road up a mountain, during which I finally realised why people are so keen on 4-wheel drive cars. I'd hired the "compact" any driving any faster that 10 miles an hour the car would skid all over the place.

There are wonderful stories of the town, and a number of particularly grizzly murders took place in the post office. The Landowner is hoping to get a grant to develop the town for tourism and the current population is there to try to preserve it by preventing travelers moving in. After charging us $12, making us sign a disclaimer as in places the ground occasionally caves-in due to the honeycomb sub-structure from the mining activities; Sun Dog told a story of how the town had been squatted in the 70’s, finishing up with “See the old prison down there? That’s where I keep ma guns”. We were told to leave by sunset…

The original photos have been heavily manipulated in Photoshop through a process of colouring, masking, layering, blurring and hinge on pixelation. This “romanticizes” the image. In making my appliqués, I start by making sepia images in a similar way as a sketch of the final work.

I wanted the prints to relate in scale to 19th century ink drawings made by artist's taking the Grand Tour and also to early photography of the American West. In this way, the prints expose the ghost towns as romantic constructions, which is what they have now become through story telling and tourism. The images of the ruined adobe buildings are reminiscent of the ancient European cities; Rome, Athens, Pompeii, and also of bombed buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan, hence the title, Course of Empire.

Rowena Dring 2008

This series of 20 images, each in an edition of 4 with 2 a.p. printed with pigment ink onto photo rag paper.