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Printmaking

About 

From the evolution and artistry of Japanese woodblock prints to Gutenberg’s revolutionary printing press in the 15th century, from the 1960s when Andy Warhol’s screen prints shook up the art world to the arrival of the contemporary digital age, printmaking has played a vital role in art and culture and continues to push creative boundaries in the 21st century.  

The National Art School’s outstanding Printmaking faculty instructs students in the Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) and Master of Fine Art (MFA) programs to develop key technical skills across and explore the boundaries of contemporary visual art to find their own path as an emerging practicing artist. The BFA course covers the full range of printmaking processes including relief, intaglio, screen printing, lithography and digital print process.  

Printmaking students at NAS have access to well-equipped workshops and studios that allow them to acquire studio skills across a broad range of printmaking techniques and materials, from relief printing to digital print process, taught by highly experienced lecturers, all of whom are practicing artists, and assisted by specialised workshop technical staff. Working with a variety of media, students create a wide range of images and objects that can include multiples, artist’s books, site-specific works and traditional prints. 

Teaching in our printmaking studios combines technical instruction and critical discourse that direct students toward the discovery of a personal visual language. Students at NAS gain the in-depth conceptual understanding and studio discipline required to pursue a successful career in visual art.  

The faculty team is led by Head of Printmaking Simon Cooper, also NAS Head of Studies and an accomplished practicing artist who joined the School in 2001. He has taught and exhibited around Australia and overseas, with work held in collections nationally and internationally. All Printmaking lecturers at NAS are also experienced professional artists, dedicated to engaging, supporting and challenging their students throughout their degrees.  

NAS is renowned for its studio-based, hands-on model of learning. All Printmaking students receive intensive face-to-face teaching in small classes and are allocated their own studio in the final year of their BFA studies. Postgraduate students also have their own studio on campus. As well as thriving under the tuition of experts, Printmaking students are encouraged to support each other and work collaboratively to develop their studio practice, share research and experiment with printmaking processes and materials.  

In the BFA program, all students take Printmaking in their first year as part of their studio rotations which also includes painting, photomedia, ceramics, and sculpture. In second year, students focus fully on a chosen studio area such as Printmaking, however there are always opportunities for cross-disciplinary work.

Facilities 

NAS’s extensive Printmaking facilities include: 

  • Intaglio printmaking facilities suitable for the development of small to large-scale works utilising both copper and zinc etching plates and a broad range of etching techniques 
  • Relief Printmaking facilities suitable for the development of small to large-scale relief words utilising both wood and linoleum 
  • Screen Print studio suitable for the production of small to large-format works utilising both photographic resists and stencil techniques 
  • Lithography facilities utilising direct print process for both stone and plate lithography 
  • Book binding and letterpress facilities for the production of artist books and multiples 
  • Resources for the production of photographic printmaking including digital print and heat transfer 

NAS has a number of public spaces and opportunities for students to exhibit their works and be involved in professional work experience over the course of their degrees. 

CONTACT

Please fill in our online enquiry form below or call us on +61 2 9339 8651 to speak to our Student Services Team.

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Alumni 

Printmaking graduates from NAS have gone on to successful careers in the art sector as full-time practising artists, custom printers, studio managers and technicians, art educators and gallery employees. 

Angus Fisher

Philjames

Kirtika Kain

Alexi Keywan

Deborah Williams

Core Subject 

This outline for Printmaking Studio Elective 1, a core first year subject at NAS, gives an insight into the foundations of the Printmaking program. 

Printmaking Studio Elective I

Objectives 

This subject aims to further the creative, intellectual and speculative capacities of each student through practical studio experience. Knowledge of the Printmaking discipline is extended by means of research, presentations and discussions. 

Subject Content 

Printmaking Studio Elective I follows a program of thematically based class projects that explore the principles of fine art printmaking. Students will 

  • Examine the principles of printmaking processes
  • Research and discuss formative historical, conceptual and technical issues in printmaking
  • Conceive, develop and realise idea through the use of printmaking processes
  • Relate the material nature of printmaking processes to conceptual concerns
  • Critically discuss their own work and the work of others
  • Exercise professional standards of studio practice including Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) guidelines applicable to the Printmaking studio

Learning Outcomes 

On completion of this subject, students will be able to: 

  • Demonstrate technical competence in basic printmaking processes
  • Understand the potential of printmaking processes as art making strategies
  • Conceive, develop and realise ideas through the use of printmaking processes
  • Describe formative historical, conceptual and technical issues in printmaking
  • Work co-operatively, and in accordance with Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards applicable to the Printmaking studio

 

Short Courses

In addition to full degree study, NAS offers an extensive range of Short Courses suited to all ages and experience levels. The courses are taught by practicing artists and are run on campus and online throughout the year, covering every artistic discipline from ceramics to sculpture to photomedia. NAS also offers an extensive school holiday program for all primary and high school students. Visit the Short Course pages for more information about what’s coming up.

STAFF

  • Dr Carolyn McKenzie-Craig

    Head of Printmaking

  • Angus Fisher

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Esther Neate

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Rebecca O’Shea

    Printmaking Studio Technician

  • Janet Parker-Smith

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Jason Phu

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Mirra Whale

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Stephanie Nova Milne

    Printmaking Lecturer

  • Caroline Rothwell

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Christopher Dolman

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Tristan Chant

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Isabella Kennedy

    First Peoples Programs Officer, Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Graham McDougal

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Malcolm Smith

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Samuel Hodge

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Therese Keogh

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Todd McMillan

    Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Dr Carolyn McKenzie-Craig

Head of Printmaking

BFA Griffith University, BFA (Hons) Griffith University, PhD (QCA) Griffith University

Carolyn Craig is an artist whose work examines the coded construction of subjectivity. She investigates inscriptive performance as an active site for the maintenance and enforcement of types of cultural normativity with a particular focus on the idea of “habitus” as discussed by Pierre Bourdieu. Carolyn deconstructs gestural actions as tropes and stereotypes by utilising her own body as a site of absurd action. The performative traces of these gestures are recorded and inverted to query the distribution and maintenance of fixity. She is one half of the artist collective BRUCE & Barry with Heidi Stevens.

Areas of Specialisation:

Carolyn’s interests and areas of specialization include gender and typological representations, photo discourse and history, drawing ontologies, contemporary print-media and social praxis and contemporary art.

Subjects and Courses Taught:

STU100 Studio Introduction to Printmaking
PRI200 Printmaking 2
PRI300 Printmaking 3
PRI400 Printmaking Honours
Expanded Printmedia
MFA Supervision

Angus Fisher

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Angus Fisher is a practicing artist living and working on the Hawkesbury river just north of Sydney. His art practice investigates nature, ecology and the evolving attitudes and changing philosophical interpretations of the ‘natural’ world. Primarily working with etching and drawing, Angus utilises traditional working techniques, methodologies and aesthetics to place his work in direct connection to historical contexts and traditions. Angus is a graduate of the National Art School and is currently represented by Australian Galleries in Australia and Jonathan Cooper Gallery in the UK. He has worked as an artist and teacher around Australia and previously as an archaeological illustrator in Greece. Angus has been a finalist in several art prizes around Australia including the Waterhouse prize for Natural history and was the 2018 recipient of the National Art School’s Cité des Art Paris studio residency.

Esther Neate

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Esther Neate pushes traditional boundaries in print to produce objects that bear the impressions of time and process. She holds a Master Degree of Fine Art in Printmaking and has eight years’ experience in arts education. Her prints, woodblocks and porcelain sculptures have been exhibited at Annandale Galleries and Dominik Mersch Gallery in Sydney.

Rebecca O’Shea

Printmaking Studio Technician

Rebecca is highly skilled in both the technical and artistic aspects of printmaking, managing the studio spaces and being Covid and WHS compliant. Rebecca was previously the Technical Officer in the Printmaking Department at UNSWAD, since 2017. Rebecca is committed to helping students develop their art practices and visual language and highly invested in the student experience.

Janet Parker-Smith

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Janet Parker-Smith is a Sydney based artist whoes practice incorporates Printmedia, Sculpture, collage and Altered books. She has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for over 25 years. She has had several solo exhibitions and has been chosen as a finalist in many art competitions. Her work has been purchased by the AGNSW and NGV. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.  Janet works in the Public Programs and is a sessional teacher at the National Art school. She has been teaching across Printmaking and bookmaking for over 25 years.

Jason Phu

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Jason is a practicing artist working across a wide range of media. His work references personal narratives and poetry, he sometimes uses humour in his work. He is currently based in Gertrude Contemporary as a studio artist. He is represented by STATION Gallery and Chalk Horse gallery.

Mirra Whale

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Mirra Whale is a Sydney based painter, drawer and printmaker. Her works explore beauty in the everyday ‘banal and common place’ subjects by presenting them from another angle. She has been a finalist of several art prizes including the Archibald Prize, Kedumba Drawing Award, Still Life Award, Emsla, Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize, Salon Des Refuses, Portia Geach Portrait Prize, Shirley Hannan Portrait Prize, AME Bale Art Prize, Mortimore Art Prize and the Manning Gallery Prize.

In 2019 she was the winner of the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award (EMSLA) in Sydney,  2011 was winner of the Royal Art Society North Sydney Drawing Prize.

Mirra works in public programs and is a sessional teacher at the National Art School. She has also taught workshops at the AGNSW, Bundanon Trust, SH Ervin Gallery, PLC, Kings School, Art Est, Lake Macquarie Regional Gallery and run programmes for the Dept of Education. Her works are held in both public and private collections. Currently represented by Mitchell Fine Art Gallery.

Stephanie Nova Milne

Printmaking Lecturer

Stephanie is one-half of the intimately communal artist, nova Milne. nova Milne received a collaboratively credited MFA from UNSW, and an excerpt of their exegesis appears in the anthology TIME: Documents of Contemporary Art (Whitechapel & MIT Press 2013). nova Milne’s installations include screen-based sculpture, sound, experimental choreography, artists books, and their ongoing re-archiving actions.  They have been the recipients of several awards including the NSW Visual Artists Fellowship, a Samstag Scholarship, and the New York Foundation of the Arts Digital Fellowship. Their work is represented in public collections including the AGNSW, AGWA, The Centre Pompidou, Lyon Housemuseum & Deakin University. 

 

Caroline Rothwell

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Caroline Rothwell is a multidisciplinary artist with a research-driven art practice. Her work explores human interaction with the natural world and its lasting effects. She works across sculpture, painting, video and installation, searching for poetic, political interconnection between the systems and cycles of Nature and technologies in our time.
Caroline holds an MFA Sculpture University of Auckland/Hunter College, City University of New York.
She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in various countries including What if we could remember the future? at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery Sydney in 2023 and Australian Print Workshop, Marking 40 years, Tokyo Gendai, Japan in 2024. She was the Creative Australia Resident at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris in 2024 and has also completed residencies at the Museum of Archaeology, University of Cambridge in 2015 and Art OMI International Artists, New York in 2014. Caroline won the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize and the Woollahra small sculpture plith prize in 2021.She was a Wynne Prize and Sulman Prize finalist at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2020.

Christopher Dolman

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Chris Dolman is a cross disciplinary artist living and working on Gadigal land. Using traditional techniques with ad-hoc methodologies, Chris explores contradictions within himself and the world around him. He uses chance and intuition as drivers for making, humour to disguise meaning, and switches between abstract and figurative modes of representation, to talk about existential themes of loss and impermanence, expectation and failure.
Chris holds an MFA (research) from Sydney College of Arts, Sydney University, and a BFA Printmaking with honours (first class) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.
In 2019, he won the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Artists Traveling Scholarship. He received the Dyason Bequest from the Art Gallery of NSW in 2017. ArtStart and New Work grants from the Australia Council for the Arts in 2013 and 2011. He was the recipient of the Wallara Travelling Scholarship, George Hicks award, and the NGV Women’s Association Award, VCA 2009.
Chris has undertaken international residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Villa Belleville, Paris, and Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium. National residencies include: Bundanon Trust, Hill End, BigCi NSW, Ceramic Design Studio, Parramatta Artist Studios, and Artspace Sydney.

Tristan Chant

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Isabella Kennedy

First Peoples Programs Officer, Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Isabella Kennedy is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working on Gadigal land in Sydney. She holds an MFA (Printmaking) from the National Art School. In 2022 she won the Bird Holcomb Foundation Scholarship. Her current practice explores processes of perception and spatial relationships through the braided motifs of falling, suspending, and interweaving – porous in-between states defined by slippery thresholds. Isabella has participated in multiple group exhibitions most recently Edition Five, Broadhurst Gallery, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney and Selected, CBD Gallery, Sydney.

Graham McDougal

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Graham McDougal studied at Cumbria College of Art and Design and at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland, before earning a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His work has been exhibited recently at STNDRD, St. Louis, Regina Rex, New York, Providence College Galleries, the Print Center New York, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago, Fjord, Philadelphia, Firstdraft and KNULP in Sydney. His prints and multiples have been included in projects at the Print Center Philadelphia, Printed Matter, New York and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has received grants from the Scottish International Education Trust, New York Foundation for the Arts, Cornell Council for the Arts and the Hellman Foundation. He has participated as an artist in the Nesnadny + Schwartz Visiting Curator Program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, and residencies at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, Woodstock, New York and Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California. He is currently a co-director at Print Club Ltd. a print publisher and art consultancy based in California and Sydney and has taught within the art programs at Cornell University, New York, Oberlin College, Ohio, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston at Tufts University, Boston, the University of California Davis and the National Art School, Sydney.

Malcolm Smith

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Malcolm Le Smith (They/Them) is an artist and teacher from Dyarrubin (Hawkesbury, NSW) who has lived mostly in Yogyakarta since 2010, where they are one of the founding members of Krack Studio.  They hold a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies from Universitas Sanata Dharma in Yogyakarta and currently teach at the National Art School where they are also a Doctoral candidate. They have significant experience in the Art Sector having worked at the Australian Cente for Photography, The Australian Centre for Craft and Design and the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art.

Samuel Hodge

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Samuel Hodge lives and works on Gadigal land. His practice draws on a twenty-year archive of material, juxtaposing specific objects from unfamiliar places, reanimating imagery, thoughts, and feelings that have been concealed, ignored, or disregarded. This potentially never-ending process inspired Samuel to question the duty and integrity of the materials he’s manipulating – this includes photography, textiles, and digital video.
Hodge’s recent exhibitions include The Public Body.02, a curated exhibition at Artspace, Sydney; The Wit of the Staircase, UNSW Gallery, Sydney; The Imponderable Archive, WerkArtz, Los Angeles. In 2017, he was the Artist in Residence at Carriageworks, Sydney, where he presented two public programs in the form of an experimental performance. In 2019, Hodge was awarded the UNSWAAD Cité des Arts International Studio Residency in Paris. Additionally, Samuel’s collaborations have included Melbourne dance company Chunky Move and a collection with Australian fashion icons, Romance Was Born.
Samuel holds an MFA (Research) from UNSW.

Therese Keogh

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Therese Keogh is an artist and writer living and working on Awabakal and Worimi lands and waters. She holds a PhD from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She has 9 years’ experience teaching in art schools (National Art School and Victorian College of the Arts), and architecture/landscape architecture programs (UTS, RMIT, and University of Newcastle), as well as short teaching stints at UBC, Canada, and Critical Media Lab, Switzerland.
Therese has participated in multiple solo, group and collaborative exhibitions and projects most recently All That is Alive at UTS Galleries and Topographies at SCA Galleries.

Todd McMillan

Printmaking Lecturer (Sessional)

Todd McMillan is an artist whose photography, painting, film and video works operate at the crossroads of art, literature, and field-based enquiry. From 2013, Todd’s practice saw the removal of the human protagonist (most often himself) to refocus his enquiry on the natural landscape. The various natural landscapes depicted in Todd’s works (predominantly the sea and sky) are both pensive records of his travels and melancholic provocations that implore us to reconsider our engagement with, and impact upon, the world.
Todd has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions including a major solo exhibition at MONA, Hobart, in 2013 titled Ten Years of Tears. Recent exhibitions include Whiskey Priest in 2023 and Bridge of Sighs in 2022 both at Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney; and New Matter in 2016 Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. Todd’s work is held in many public and private collections internationally, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney; the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart.
Todd holds an MFA (Research) Photography from the College of Fine Arts, Sydney.
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Don’t miss out on your chance to bid on an artwork at the NAS Gala! Get your tickets now and join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating the treasures of the National Art School, our artists.

Announcing a thrilling line up of artists contributing artworks to our live and silent auction. This is your opportunity to add a special piece of art by a celebrated NAS artist to your collection.

Ann Thomson
Bernard Ollis OAM
Reg Mombassa
Eliza Gosse
Euan Macleod
Gene A`Hern
Guido Maestri
Guy Warren AM
Joan Ross
Juz Kitson
Mitch Cairns
Rosemary Lee
Wendy Sharpe AM FRSN
Zoe Young
More to come…

NAS Gala | National Treasures
Art Auction and Cocktail Party
Friday 21 November, 6.00pm – 11.30pm
Cell Block Theatre, National Art School

Purchase tickets at the link in bio.

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Sep 18

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Don’t miss out on your chance to bid on an artwork at the NAS Gala! Get your tickets now and join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating the treasures of the National Art School, our artists. Announcing a thrilling line up of artists contributing artworks to our live and silent auction. This is your opportunity to add a special piece of art by a celebrated NAS artist to your collection. Ann Thomson Bernard Ollis OAM Reg Mombassa Eliza Gosse Euan Macleod Gene A'Hern Guido Maestri Guy Warren AM Joan Ross Juz Kitson Mitch Cairns Rosemary Lee Wendy Sharpe AM FRSN Zoe Young More to come… NAS Gala | National Treasures Art Auction and Cocktail Party Friday 21 November, 6.00pm – 11.30pm Cell Block Theatre, National Art School Purchase tickets at the link in bio.

Join us for the closing party for The Neighbour at the Gate – `Afterglow`, headlined by Miss Kaninna, and featuring performances by HYLANDER, Rocky Stallone, BRINA, Kuya Hennessy and DJ Court Jester. This free, 18+ concert will be a night to remember!

Thursday 16 October 2025
4.30pm – 10pm
Cell Block Theatre

RSVP at the link in bio.

The Neighbour at the Gate has been made possible with the generous support of the NSW Government through its Blockbusters Funding initiative.

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Sep 15

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Join us for the closing party for The Neighbour at the Gate – 'Afterglow', headlined by Miss Kaninna, and featuring performances by HYLANDER, Rocky Stallone, BRINA, Kuya Hennessy and DJ Court Jester. This free, 18+ concert will be a night to remember! Thursday 16 October 2025 4.30pm – 10pm Cell Block Theatre RSVP at the link in bio. The Neighbour at the Gate has been made possible with the generous support of the NSW Government through its Blockbusters Funding initiative.

Karatsu ceramicist Yukiko Tsuchiya (@tsuchiyayukiko) and curator Kathryn Hunyor (@artspeople_au) delivered two very special workshops in the teaching studios of the Ceramics Department at the National Art School (NAS), in an exciting collaboration between The Japan Foundation (@jpfsydney), Sydney, the NAS Ceramics Department and the National Art School.

Peek inside the wheel-throwing and hand-coiling masterclasses that took place.

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Sep 14

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Karatsu ceramicist Yukiko Tsuchiya (@tsuchiyayukiko) and curator Kathryn Hunyor (@artspeople_au) delivered two very special workshops in the teaching studios of the Ceramics Department at the National Art School (NAS), in an exciting collaboration between The Japan Foundation (@jpfsydney), Sydney, the NAS Ceramics Department and the National Art School. Peek inside the wheel-throwing and hand-coiling masterclasses that took place.
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