Nina Juniper

Nina Juniper (b. Australia, 1991) works across photo and print-based mediums. Graduating in Fine Art (Printmaking) from Curtin University in 2012, she was the recipient of the Fine Art Graduate Award, before completing Honours (1st Class) in 2019, for which she was also recipient of the Honours Fine Studio Award and selected for the Hatched exhibition at PICA. Through her photography and print-based practice, Nina explores the built environment and the frenetic rate of change and transitory nature of our everyday surroundings. She has exhibited across Australia in solo, two person and group exhibitions.

Tell us about your creative process. What drives your practice?

I am excited by experimental screen-printing processes and work with a multi-disciplinary, practice-led approach. Walking through the city, I photograph my environment, focussing on construction and demolition sites. I realised I am increasingly drawn to their inherent support structures: the scaffolding, tilt-up props, formwork timber, slab-slinging cranes, the particle-board hoardings. These sites and their structures—a now ubiquitous aesthetic of the contemporary cityscape— have become the focus of my research as a practicing artist. These photographs — the source material for my works — are distorted into abstractions — the colours, shapes and textures within the images manipulated to form unique screen prints on both paper and, crucially, other industrial materials. 

How does site and architectural space inform the materiality of your works?

Through practice-led research and experimentation I began incorporating the industrial materials found within construction sites into my print-based works. I have become interested in the dialogue between the photographic images and the support materials on which they are printed. I am excited by the merging of processes and the expanding of traditional screen printing through the use of industrial materials in a way that speaks of the construction sites I am utilising. 

Extending the traditional processes and methods of print-based works, I similarly reference the industrial materials found in construction by printing on materials that have historically existed outside of a fine art context, such as compressed fibre cement, concrete and plywood. I visually, conceptually, and materially translate these transitional architectural sites through abstracted pictorial representations, offering a new context for the viewer to engage with the aesthetics of temporal urban environments.

What is the role of constructive and reconstructive processes in your practice?

My work focuses on an urban landscape undergoing rapid and relentless redevelopment and spatial transformation. In particular, temporary construction and reconstruction sites and their associated support structures. I want my print-based works themselves to be built through a number of constructive and reconstructive processes, working directly with the fabric of the urban environment. For example in Untitled (north-west) and Untitled (south-east) I created small-scale formwork to cast concrete blocks which form the foundation and substrate for these screen-prints. The possibility of creating multiples using a singular mould for a like object in modern construction is mirrored in the multiplicity of the ‘print’ medium, forming a dialogue between photographic images of the building’s architecture and the support materials on which the images are printed. I am interested in playing with these relationships

Similarly I having been playing with constructing small frames and structures out of timber to support my printed works, reflecting the building sites I am referencing. I am excited by the ways I can construct 3-dimensional forms from 2-dimensional screen prints and shift these works into a physical space. I still enjoy spontaneous studio experimentation between the methods of screen printing, cutting, bending, reassembling and constructing. Through this merging of processes these documented construction sites have been abstracted into geometric representations, re-interpreting and translating these architectural sites. 

You recently co-founded CURRENT, an artist-run initiative (ARI) in Walyalup, Western Australia. Can you tell us more about the ARI and the role it plays within the arts ecology?

CURRENT is a small volunteer-run gallery space and testing ground which I co-founded with my friend Will Ek Uvelius in September 2023. Located in an industrial electrical substation building, we rent this space and host a range of programmes that are experimental, innovative, test new ideas, extend existing artistic practices and engage with contemporary artistic discourse through exhibitions, workshops, performances, residencies and pop-ups. 

After spending many years away, (living in both Sydney and the APY Lands) I returned home to Walyalup (Fremantle) and was surprised by the lack of small, low-threshold spaces for emerging and early career artists. It certainly felt like there was an opportunity to create a new space for the arts community. We are proud to offer the space to artists for our core programming of paid opportunities (shows and residencies), whilst maintaining opportunities in the calendar for artists to make free use of the space for shorter, self-run exhibitions and testing. This is only possible with the generous support of the wider arts community who contribute to our annual fundraiser group exhibition and event. Luckily we have been able to raise enough money to cover rent, a few operational costs and our paid artistic opportunities.

It has been an incredible project and we cannot believe the community support we have received. It has been a fantastic way to reconnect with the community here after living away for such a long time.

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

I am excited to be creating new print-based works for an upcoming group exhibition at TILES Lewisham, in Sydney. ‘Support/STRUCTURE/s’ will have works by Damian Dillon, Tyza Hart, Julie Fragar and Carolyn McKenzie-Craig and myself, opening on Friday 8th November 2024. Sydney-siders please come along!

‘Support/STRUCTURE/s investigates what holds us together as social scaffolding and alternatively what structurally constricts us as embodied and political subjects. Each of the artists will focus on a particular component of this question both materially and conceptually as a way to understand the network of ‘supports’ that underwrite our complex world – in particular in terms of image making and aesthetic meaning. Support opens up a complex set of relational positions that will be unfolded with an accompanying publication.’- exhibition text

I am also slowly getting my little side project, Pinch Point Press, up and running. I hope to establish a general access print studio based in Walyalup, with a screen printing focus, along with a little etching press used predominantly for photopolymer plates and drypoint etchings. 

CURRENT recently completed an open call for its annual programming of  ‘SHOW’ and ‘SITE SPECIFIC RESIDENCY’. We are very pleased to be able to provide these paid artist opportunities and will be announcing the recipients soon. If you missed this we have another mode of application, ‘PROVIDE SPACE’, for shorter, free, self-run exhibitions, and this is open year-round.

I have also just begun a new working role as co-director for a new independent contemporary arts organisation, Vessel, that will be operating from the historic industrial Naval Store building in Fremantle! Keep an eye out on socials for this launching soon.