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Centre Researchers Brushed by Twentieth Century Paint

Posted on 13/10/2008

Chemistry and art have combined on a number of levels through Centre activities, demonstrating that chemists are creative people.

Environmental free radicals damage many materials. It has long been a problem for art conservationists as how to best protect valuable art works from free radical degradation. Paintings, for example, are susceptible to free radical damage than can be caused by photo-oxidative stress, by exposure to pollution and other atmospheric free radicals. Organisations that include the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) in Los Angeles are working on problems associated with the deterioration of cultural materials and share common interests with Centre researchers.

In September 2007, Dr Tom Learner, Senior Scientist from the GCI visited the Melbourne and Brisbane nodes of the Centre to discuss joint research initiatives led by the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (CCMC) and involving the Tate Gallery, National Gallery of Australia as well as several other organisations. These discussions led to the submission of an ARC Linkage proposal that will contribute to our understanding of artists' materials used in the Asia-Pacific region during the Twentieth Century. "Conservators have almost no information on any of these products in terms of how to identify them or how they might alter with age or be affected by conservation treatments", says Dr Learner.

"This collaboration will inform conservation and curatorial decision-making in the region through innovative and effective interdisciplinary research", remarked Associate Professor Robyn Sloggett, Director of the CCMC. "Collaboration with the Getty will extend the Centre's areas of research further into the realms of art conservation". says Professor Carl Schiesser "which is an area that we have already begun to work on in partnership with the CCMC."

In September 2007, PhD student Caroline Kyi, began a project that straddles the expertise of the two Centres.

Caroline is working in the areas of biodeterioration that often manifests itself in the form of visual and/or physical damage to culturally significant objects. As part of her project, Caroline secured funding to visit archeologically signficant sites in Egypt in 2008.