The plan was to take a quick turn around the Moores Building then have lunch. After examining all the prints, we climbed the stairs to check out a photographic chronicle of life in Perth. But these two exhibitions provided a plethora of interesting images, and deserved a longer than usual perusal. We opted to linger, skip lunch and have afternoon tea instead.

The printmakers association can boast a large collection of members that range from the most competent artists in the medium to the yet to be but trying their best. Their annual show is always a mixed bag but invariably ends up being a worthwhile experience. The different styles, techniques, media and sheer number of exhibits on display makes it a certainty that every visitor will be delighted with some and dismiss others.

The winner of the Unique State Category, Strange New Skin an etching by Sue Duncan, is a deserving choice. It's swirling linear pattern spins outward from a dark circular vortex, lessening in complexity as it solidifies into transparent rectilinear panels. It creates a sense of order coming from chaos or perhaps the order is being sucked in and consumed by chaos. The mystery of the image is exacerbated by the title and I noticed quite a few who attempted a walk past, back-track to examine it more closely. One wonders how each interpreted it.

Brunhilda Prince's Transformation of Earthly Desires into Enlightenment, in the same category, is my choice for the guernsey. It doesn't appear as technically difficult as Duncan's work, however the nine gauze squares printed with swirls of soft hues produces a charming concinnity of concept, medium, technique, title and imagery. Actually, there are no images on these squares yet some offer the illusion of forms beginning to congeal, almost there, just beyond recognition.

Upstairs in Candy's Isolation City exhibition the images are easily identifiable, it's the message that takes time to form. We are instructed to walk the exhibition in numerical order of exhibits from 1 to 161. There are more photographs than exhibits as some include up to 9 individual shots. As with the show below, some are better than others but none can really be faulted.

These images relate to everyone, in one form or another - religion, industrialization, art, friends, home, shopping, drugs, graffiti, parks, parties, even a dunny. This is life in and around Perth, W.A. - above and below board. Every now and then a naked man appears, trying to make his way through the day, through the city, through life. Here and there he tries to escape; to swim away, fly away, jump from the top of a hill, he even considers posting himself outta here.

I got so absorbed in the photographs that the total concept evolved slowly, as in life. It clicked around the 60's (not the decade, the exhibit numbers).  Here we find  View of City at Dusk and River at Dusk two works that transform our world into beautiful extraterrestrial landscapes, while the three exhibits (seven images) of Kwinana suggests a moon base. Our home is suddenly oddly 'alien'.

Meanwhile, I do like the composition of Lifesaver (for its horizontal recession), Exhibition (play of light and dark) and House - Beaufort St (spooky point of view) and the appreciation Candy reserves for the works in Kojonup Art Trail. I appreciate the ghostly connection between road death site markers in Crosses and the empty Freeway at night with it's street lights looking like hovering spirits. And of course the juxtaposition of pre-construction tunnel protesters and curious hordes travelling it after completion. What fickle folk we are.

All in all a delightful excursion, take a cut lunch, see it, enjoy.