I arrived in Darwin with a
sequence of works on paper developed in
situ in the Kimberley, WA. The space in the gallery that I occupied was
normally used for inter-disciplinary exhibitions, often involving
projections. This lent itself to a sense
of enclosure that became very suggestive of both natural and cultural
environments as I drew on the walls.
My
initial idea was to draw across the walls and the paper integrating the two
surfaces, however as I lay out the paper works, they floated quite beautifully
in the space and I could not imagine drawing over them.
Instead, I outlined the paper on the side
walls of the gallery to suggest they had been peeled off these surfaces. I drew
with ink and pigments over the walls until they achieved a saturation equal to
the drawings.
At the end I peeled away
the masking tape revealing the process of the drawing. This opened up an exciting new mark and
perspective to the work.
This was a
totally new and unexpected development of my practice that I aim to pursue in
further works. There were strong references to caves and rock walls due to my
use of natural pigments but this was counterpoised through my use of the
masking tape to reference the drawings on paper that were hung on another
wall.
These lines added architectural
references that allowed the walls to appear as frescoes or church walls similar
to those found in Europe. I was pleased
with this cross-cultural referencing between Indigenous Australian experience
and my training in Western Art traditions.
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