The work:
Vanessa Wallace, Bunny Tree: 31: 05: 2022: 839am, 2022. Digital pigment print, etching, chine-collé, chalk transfer, coloured pencil on archival rag paper, edition of 5, 47 x 40cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Collectors are synonymous with the art world — individuals collecting physical items of beauty and meaning as a passion or pastime. However, artist Vanessa Wallace is a collector of a different kind. Rather than collecting physical objects, Wallace collects moments in time which she makes physical through a lengthy process of selection and mark-making. Her work Bunny Tree: 31: 05: 2022: 839am is part of an ongoing series created in collaboration with her daughter that seeks to capture fleeting moments as they walk to and from school. Tomorrow, her daughter will grow ever-so-slightly, the world will change, and the moment of Bunny Tree: 31: 05: 2022: 839am will never be encountered again. Wallace uses multiple processes to develop the final work, preferring repetitive or intensive means of documenting the experience. An initial photograph is printed digitally, and then transferred to a copper plate to be etched in parts. The resulting prints are affixed alongside drawings and ghostly transfers of words documenting the event. Viewing the work is as multi-layered as the work itself, with new colours appearing when seen from different angles, and words appearing and shifting as they withhold their meaning.