Penny Peckham has always been torn between art and literature, between making, drawing and reading, between making art and writing about it.  These days she works primarily as a printmaker, and with a background in Art History, much of her work is related to her areas of research, particularly art by or relating to women.  While working on her doctoral thesis about the work of the Australian artist Vivienne Binns she developed a great interest in imagery used by many women artists that related to their own lives and the lives of women within their families.  She became particularly interested in art that relates to traditional female handcrafts and around 2003 began making a series of linocut prints based upon garments she had knitted.  Her reading of feminist art history and theory was also the catalyst for a series of works relating to the female nude in art. Text has been an important element of much of her work – a reflection of her interest in literature, which also finds an outlet in the making of artist’s books.  

The influence of a trip to Japan in 2014 is beginning to emerge in current work.

She has only fairly recently moved to Castlemaine to live and her studio is currently a work in progress. She has had a number of solo exhibitions and her work has been selected in prize exhibitions including The Silk Cut Award and the Manly Artists Book Award.

Penny can be contacted at [email protected]
and her blog is at  
http://wordandimage pennypeckham.blogspot.com.au/

Lino Print - From theBook 'Of the mist'

'With these hands' - Self Portrait 2015 Lino print 19x20cm

A Taxonomy of 28 Art 29 20 Cats-Sitting up 2013 Lino print