Category Archives: Australian Design

Clare Kennedy speaks to artist John Dickson who used a pasta machine to create a set of striking monoprints for his Strip Show exhibition at McKinnon café Mr Burch.

Pasta machines are more often associated with food than art, but Melbourne artist John Dickson saw the potential to make more than linguine.  The result is an exhibition of striking black-and-white monoprints, now hanging at café Mr Burch in McKinnon Road, McKinnon.

“When an opportunity came up to exhibit at the café, I knew I had to act quickly. To organise a press takes a lot of time, so I wondered what I could use.”  Dickson’s ideas crystallised when, during kitchen renovations at his Melbourne home, he spied the small pasta machine languishing in the back cupboard.

Originally, he was going to use the mangle of an old-fashioned washing machine to make the prints, but that didn’t go to plan. “I went down to the junk shop, but you can’t find them any more unless they’re really special vintage things that you pay a lot of money for. I did find two, but they had big gaps in the rollers, so they were useless. Then I noticed the pasta machine works on the same principle, but with steel rollers and only this wide,” he says. “So I tried it and it worked beautifully, and I don’t have to rely on anyone else to be there”.

“The technique I’ve been using is monoprinting, meaning you get a one-off print, which is not that common in print making.  The integrity of the print demands that you destroy the plate afterwards, so there’s no other prints made.”

So, what motivates the

artist, a graphic designer by day? “This is a relief from the discipline of graphic design, where I can just go in there and do as I bloody well like. Most of my other practice is painting. I don’t use brushes; I just use my hands, like a child, which is great fun. I go through a lot of rubber gloves,” he jokes.  “It’s the old story, you do art from love. I can’t help but do it. I’ve drawn ever since I was a kid and I spent a lot of years doing cartoons for leftie magazines.”

Dickson has had an interesting career. The graphic designer at Publicity Works, also designed covers for the Australasian Psychiatry magazine for more than 10 years and worked for the record industry designing album covers for the likes of Men at Work. “They were friends of mine till they got too rich,” he says, grinning.

The artwork, which has a dark and foreboding tone – partly inspired by the skeleton in his studio – is loosely based on the idea of remembering ordinary people, the people whose names you never hear on the news.  “These images are traces, echoes and shadows of the greater portion of mankind who don’t become stars or personalities or victors or virtuosos or champions or co-hosts. They are named after people you have never heard of,” he says.

~ Strip Show runs throughout May at Mr Burch café, 129 McKinnon Road, McKinnon, Melbourne ~