The Democracy of Drawing
Two exhibitions, seventy artists
28 February – 22 March 2014
Introduction
Drawing is effective as a medium of communication because of its accessibility and immediacy. It can form the initial expression of an idea through notations and sketches; it has the capacity to communicate both simple and complex ideas and exist as an artwork in its own right. What makes drawing such a fascinating activity and discourse is its scope: while marks and lines can frame spaces, they can also be extended to create the infinite. The subjects and methods of drawing can seduce and shock, inspire wonder and serve as an object for contemplation.
Through rudimentary materials such as charcoal the illusion of an entirely new space – flat, deep or infinite – can be created on a planar surface. One cannot underestimate the awe in which the demonstration of such skill elicits from those unfamiliar with the methodology required to visually describe real or imagined spaces and objects. Alternatively, drawing can extend into social space and function as a political intervention or disrupt traditional understandings of what drawing can be. A line of wire, adhesive tape, food, sound or light; the movement of the body through space or a social interaction all open up the possibilities of how drawing can respond to and interpret the world around us. Drawing is a commentary and a measure of our times and it is within all our capabilities to create a drawing whether that is in sand, on paper, in real or virtual space.
This exhibition focuses on the work of a selection of over seventy visual artists from Sydney, interstate and overseas, both emerging and established, young and young at heart. The fact that so many artists responded positively to the invitation to exhibit is a testament to the power of drawing as an effective and relevant medium of communication. For some, drawing forms the focus of their artistic practice while for others, drawing sits on the periphery of their practice as an ever-present possibility. The array of drawing in both The Democracy of Drawing 1 and The Democracy of Drawing 2 comes in a phenomenal range of forms from charcoal, thread, tape, icing sugar, found materials, sound, performance, digital imaging, text, holograms and the reliance on ants and bees, to communicate very human concerns around identity, formalism, culture, politics, gender, science, technologies and history. We hope you enjoy your visit to the first exhibition at Airspace Projects and find something that will lead you along a meandering line from point A to point B or even S.
While artists may choose drawing as a tool or form of expression in their professional careers no formal qualifications are required. During this exhibition opportunities exist to participate in Alex Falkiner’s Drawing with Thread workshops or participate in a Buddhist drawing ritual with Hyun-Hee Lee. Keep an eye on the AirSpace Projects blog for other events and activities in March 2014 as part of The Marrickville Open Studio Trail and Sydney Art Month. And don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list and like us on Facebook.
Dr Sally Clarke
31 January 2014 ©
Participating Artists
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Ron Adams
The Greatest Defender 2014. Watercolour pencil on watercolour paper, 21 x 29 cm. Photo credit: Ron Adams.
2013 Under Heavy Manners, Galerie pompom, Sydney, 2011 This Time, USQ, Southern Queensland, 2011 Zooplasty, Helen Gory Gallery, Melbourne, 2011 O, Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney
Adams work is autobiographical, primarily text based Geometrical Abstraction leaning towards an aesthetic that resembles Concrete Minimalism, Russian Constructivism, Bauhaus and De still, influenced by Psychology, Philosophy, Architecture, Music and Design.
Ron Adams is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney
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Roohi S. Ahmed
The Shadow of My Love II, 2014, fabric, thread and wooden embroidery frame, variable dimensions. Photo credit: Roohi S. Ahmed.
Roohi S. Ahmed is a Karachi based artist and has participated in many national and international exhibitions. She was in Sydney from 2011–2013 for her Master of Fine Arts (Research) at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW.
I am interested to create a place for the viewer to bring their own associations, perceptions and curiosities as a means to awaken specific or vague personal memories and stumble upon unforseen destinations that come into existence by the intermingling of the factual and the imagined.
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Lisa Anderson
Tricksters and Huldefolke, 2014. Collage/ink/watercolour on paper envelopes, 29 x 21cm. Photo credit: Lisa Anderson.
Lisa Anderson’s current exhibitions include the Neon Cloud, a series of glass sculptures, touring London, New York and Stockholm and the video sculptural installation ICE that is touring to Wollongong City Gallery and Ballarat City Gallery. Current projects include a public installation with the Anthenuem Theatre in Melbourne and a re-versioning of Singing Up Stones, the first projection on the Sydney Opera House.
My drawings emerge from a 2013/2014 residency at Rimbah Dahan, Malaysia, where I investigate, predominately though video installation, the shadows of mythology in the contemporary world and how hidden characters in the landscape act as messengers for the environment. The video based installation works in collaboration with different dancers and composers and is a part of my research project as Adjunct Professor at the Federation University of Australia.
http://www.lisaanderson.com.au
http://www.shinyshinyworld.com
Lisa Anderson is represented by Bicha Gallery, London
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Susan Andrews
Fragile Structure, 2013. Balsa wood, acrylic and vinyl paint. 30 x 35cm. Photo credit: Susan Andrews.
Susan Andrews is a Sydney based artist and lecturer in Painting at National Art School.
I’m interested in exploring the ever-expanding language of Abstraction in the 21st century; to develop an ongoing dialogue with history and acknowledge changing perceptions of structure, time and space.
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Kylie Banyard
Kiss, 2014, pigmented print on paper and marker, various dimensions. Photo credit: Kylie Banyard.
Kylie Banyard works across a range of media, incorporating painting, sculpture and often optical devices such as kaleidoscopes and stereoscopes. She teaches at COFA, where she is currently completing a practice-led PhD.
A playful and simple reflection on affection, the little forms hover off the wall, as their points almost touch they emit a colourful aura-like glow, ‘Kiss’ recalls Paul Klee’s love of the arrow.
Kylie Banyard is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney
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Majella Beck
Carbon 1-3, 2013. Wearable. Carbon, approx. 90mm diameter each.
Majella Beck is a jeweller, object designer and tutor based in Sydney. She combines precious and non-precious materials and sees her work as a constant exploration and evaluation of what makes jewellery precious.
What better to inspire time contemplation than the very element used to measure it? For my work carbon is not a secondary element, it is the primary material and it implies time itself.
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Michele Beevors
Someday my Prince will Come, 2008. Original drawings from the series debbiedoesdisney.Magic Marker on Acetate 2 x 29.7 x 21cm. Photo credit: Michele Beevors.
Michele Beevors is a senior lecturer and Head of Sculpture at Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin. She has exhibited in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. She lives in a state of panic between Sydney and Aramoana.
debbiedoesdisney is an on-going project that explores the irrational world of the pure commodity form as it manifests within popular culture, specifically in our fantasies of ‘happy ever after’.
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Monica Behrens and Rochelle Haley
Witch’s Hammer, 2011. Watercolour on paper. 46 x 64cm.
Monika Behrens and Rochelle Haley are Sydney based artists educated at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW (Behrens MFA 2007, Haley PhD 2009). They have held local and international exhibitions and residencies.
Behrens and Haley have a common background in fine arts and shared concerns in their individual practices that have naturally evolved into collaborative thinking and making.
http://behrensandhaley.wordpress.com
Rochelle Haley is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney
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Robert Bennetts
Future Landscape, 2014. Oil pastel/pencil on Stonehenge, 70 x 55cm.
This work reflects my ideas on landscape, possibly landscapes of the future where we experience more of the geometric and less of the organic in our lives.
I have taught in the TAFE system for many years and am a practicing artist. My work primarily investigates the landscape and I have travelled extensively in pursuit of this passion.
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Matina Bourmas
Icy Pole, 2014. Royal icing on gallery surface, variable dimensions. Photo credit: Laura Tanous.
Matina Bourmas is an installation artist and contemporary jeweller. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours (2002) from Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney and an Associate Diploma in Jewellery and Object Design at Sydney Institute of Technology (1994).
Bourmas creates transient and ephemeral installations using traditional techniques often associated with domestic space and women’s work. The artist appropriates these skills by working with them within a public space in order to question the notion of giving with pure intent.
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Louisa Chircop
Looking On, 2014. Mixed media and photomontage, 60 x 50cm (framed). Photo credit: Louisa Chircop.
Louisa Chircop is a Sydney based artist and lecturer in Fine Arts. A recipient of the Fisher’s Ghost James Gleeson Award for Surrealism at Campbelltown Regional Arts Centre, her work has also been finalist in the 2012 Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW and, in 2013, she was invited to participate in the Kedumba Drawing Award resulting in her work being acquired into the Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings that resides at Orange Regional Gallery.
The Birth of a work begins as an unpredictable venture, just as the nature of life itself. When I begin to work I am reminded that life is constantly moving, propelling me to discover through a process of realisation, in turn engaging me to explore existential themes that encapsulate the human condition.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Louisa-Chircop-FB-Gallery/151471958281482
Louisa Chircop is represented by A-M Gallery, Sydney
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Andrew Christofides
Working Drawing, 2008. Acrylic, ink and pencil on graph paper. 29 x 42cm. Photo credit: Michel Brouet.
Andrew Christofides was born in Cyprus and migrated to Australia in 1951. He studied commerce at the University of NSW, and later Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, London. He has lectured extensively in painting and drawing and currently lives and works in Sydney.
I work across painting and drawing and have been interested in the visual languages of abstraction and, in particular, those of geometric abstraction. I am interested in the area that lies on the cusp between ‘pure abstraction’ and ‘the concrete’ or ‘non objective’.
Andrew Christofides is represented by King Street Gallery, Sydney and Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
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Sally Clarke
Holes, 2014. Modelling clay, various dimensions.
The hole is one of the most abused forms in human history. The hole speaks.
http://www.sallyclarkeartist.com.au
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Maryanne Coutts
Lost, 2014. Watercolour, 20 x 300cm.
Maryanne’s practice is predominantly drawing based, encompassing diverse media ranging from watercolour to animation. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally and is currently Head of Drawing at the National Art School.
I am very interested in ways that news media document and make public moments that are powerfully private. I constantly investigate ways that drawing documents the passage of time and in its touch of an attentive hand returns the human to the mass produced imagery.
http://www.australiangalleries.com.au/artists/9-artists/95-maryannecoutts
Maryanne Coutts is represented by Australian Galleries, Sydney
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Virginia Coventry
Provisional, 2014. Builders line, glassine, crayon, acrylic on marine plywood, 40 x 40 x 3cm. Photo credit: Virginia Coventry.
Virginia Coventry was born in Melbourne in 1942. Her practice has primarily involved painting and drawing although she also worked with photo-based media and installations in the 1970s.
Drawing forms the architecture within my painting. I get things clear through the process of establishing scale, proportion, rhythm, interval – through the visual concentration that goes with forming shapes and adjusting spaces between shapes …
Virginia Coventry is represented by Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney
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Paula Dawson
Hyperobject: Homeland, 2013. Z-scape digital Hologram, 60 x 60cm. Photo credit: Paula Dawson.
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Elizabeth Day
Abstract Geneticism, 2014. Knitted fibres such as wool, plastic hair and string, 34 x 50cm. Photo credit: Elizabeth Day.
Elizabeth Day recently completed a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney’s Department of Writing and Society titled Discontinued Narratives of Migration, a Visual Practice with Earth. Day is a migrant from the North of England and after many years in Tasmania, also a migrant from there. She applies the idea of the transitory state of migration to an understanding of the in-between or hybrid condition of interdisciplinarity. She is currently working with a group developing the historical Parramatta Female Factory Site into a new cultural precinct. She is also working on the Longford Project, a community site specific study of cross generational history around a town in Tasmania.
This work is part of a new series from the Longford Project looking at generational histories of a Tasmanian town.
Elizabeth Day is represented by Connie Dietzshold Gallery.
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Rox De Luca
Saved (Green), 2014. Plastic and wire. 70 x 45cm (dimensions variable). Photo credit: Rox De Luca.
Rox De Luca is a visual artist based in Sydney Australia. De Luca received a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) from Canberra School of Art (1985) and a Graduate Diploma in Arts Administration, University of NSW (1988).
De Luca’s recent works focus on the concepts of abundance, excess and waste; and are composed of the plastic detritus she collects predominantly from Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach. For The Democracy of Drawing exhibition, the artist has used single-use airline plastic locking seals to create a three-dimensional drawing in space.
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Lynda Draper
Starman, 2014. Ceramic & glazes, 13 x 17 x 17cm. Photo credit: Lynda Draper.
Lynda Draper is an artist and educator, who is primarily an object maker that works in the Ceramic medium.
It was 1972 David Bowie was on the radio …
Lynda Draper is represented by Gallerysmith, Melbourne
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Ella Dreyfus
Le Vernisagge (Blue), 2014. Inkjet print on Hahnemulhe photo rag, three works each 26 x 80cm. Photo credit: Ella Dreyfus.
Ella Dreyfus was a recent resident at the Cité Internationale des Artes, Paris and can’t wait to go back for even more art, culture, food, wine, dancing, singing and shopping.
The cool Parisian crowd at the opening night of Le Laboratoire’s Olfactory Project, a collaboration between designers, scientists and artists.
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Lynne Eastaway
Reach and Resistence, 2010. White conte/pastel on black paper, 3 pieces each approximately 35 x 25cm. Photo credit: Lynne Eastaway.
Lynne Eastaway studied at the National Art School (1970s) and College of Fine Arts, UNSW (MFA 1998). Her work has been exhibited in Australia, New York, Miami, Paris, London and the Netherlands and exhibits regularly at SNO and Factory 49, Sydney. Lynne Eastaway teaches drawing at the National Art School, Darlinghurst.
‘Reach and Resistence’ (3 drawings) was part of a bigger installation project called ‘On Line’ (UNITAS Plimsol Gallery in Hobart 2010). Four artist were asked to develop an idea from fishing line as a starting point for the work produced.
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David Eastwood
Shroud, 2011. Graphite on paper, 56 x 76cm (frame: 72 .5 x 91.5cms). Photo credit: David Eastwood.
David Eastwood is an artist who works primarily in drawing and painting, using the interior as a genre through which to construct composite images that reconfigure spatio-temporalities, re-evaluating relationships across historical periods and locations. He is represented by Robin Gibson Gallery in Sydney, and is a lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.
Shroud draws together details of décor from a number of historical interiors now preserved as museums. The image is dominated (and somewhat negated) by the mysteriously suspended drapery that ambiguously suggests a veil, a draped object, or a phantom presence.
http://www.davideastwood.com.au
http://robingibson.net/artists/david-eastwood
David Eastwood is represented by Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney
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Sian Edwards
Wedge-Tailed Eagle Feet, 2009. Glomesh, graphite, museum foam, sterling silver, cord. 20 x 15 x15cm. Photo credit: Orlando Luminere.
Sian Edwards is a jewellery and object based artist currently located in Newcastle, NSW. She completed an Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design, Enmore TAFE, 2005 and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) in Jewellery and Metals, Monash University, 2009.
Using a pair of tweezers Sian transforms mesh into intricate renderings based on studies of animals.
Sian Edwards has stock at Studio 20/17, Sydney and Pieces of Eight, Melbourne.
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Nicole Ellis
Blue/Black Swatch, 2010. Cotton, felt,interface, double-sided tape, 85 x 57.5cm. Photo credit: Sue Blackburn.
Nicole Ellis lives and works in Sydney. She is a senior lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Her practice spans the disciplines of painting, installation, sculpture and video. She exhibits nationally and internationally and has received numerous awards and overseas residencies, such as the Australia Council, Rome Studio, in 2006 and Redgate Studio, Beijing, in 2012. Her work is represented in private and public collections in Australia and overseas.
The series ‘Swatch Works’, exhibited at Level 17 Artspace in Melbourne and Factory 49 in Sydney, sets up a dialogue between the different references relating to art and life. As a hybrid form, abstracted and distanced from their usage and presented as geometric abstraction, they recall aspects of minimalism. Fabricated from discarded samples, they speak of industry as well as a reductive history of painting.
http://www.connydietzscholdgallery.com
vaaus.co.uk/
Nicole Ellis is represented by Connie Dietzshold Gallery.
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Bonita Ely
Ranger UO2: Fractals, 2014. Ink, paint, pencil, tracing paper, water colour paper, photography. 84 x 59.5cm. Photo credit: Bonita Ely.
Bonita Ely is one of the pioneers of Australian environmental art and has been exhibiting sculpture, photography, installations, performance, painting, printmaking, video and drawing since 1972. Ely’s artwork is in national and international collections and has been selected for prestigious national and international events.
In 1979 my performance, Jabiluka UO2, addressed the controversial proposal to mine uranium at a location in the Kimberley flood plain in the Northern Territory, which was thankfully scrapped in response to intense national and international campaigns initiated by the Mirarr people, the traditional owners of Jabiluka. In this artwork brush and ink drawings of Kakadu, made during the ‘Wet’ from the back of a 4WD in 2012, are extrapolated upon to contemplate the recent spill of radioactive material at Kakadu’s Ranger uranium mine where “a leach tank burst spilling about 1 million litres of highly acidic radioactive slurry” (SMH, 11/12/13), adding to the heinous outcomes of our habituated disregard for the health of natural environments, and people, recalling nuclear meltdowns at Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), Fukushima (2013), the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki (1946), the Bikini Atoll (1946 to 1958) and Maralinga (1956) et al.
http://www.bonitaely.com
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022261
Bonita Ely is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane
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Michael Esson
Hard Teeth Soft Tongue and Heart, 2012. Scraperboard, 61 x 91cm. Photo credit: Mike Esson.
Michael Esson was born in Scotland in 1950 and studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. He is a practising artist living in Sydney. Recently retired from being the Director of the International Drawing Research Institute, the College of Fine Arts, UNSW, he continues as Professor of Drawing, University of Lincoln, UK.
Although working with a range of media, drawing has remained the main focus of his visual expression. For more than 40 years his work has dealt largely with the human body, it’s structure and vulnerability. Through personal narratives, and a collision of ideas, his drawings reflect personal histories.
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Brenda Factor
Pinky, 2014. Silicon, pins, graphite and acrylic paint on cork, 30 x 30cm. Photo credit: Brenda Factor
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Alex Falkiner
Floating Fragment Drawing (Version 12), 2014. Mixed media, 80 x 45cm. Photo credit: Alex Falkiner.
Alex is a maker, visual artist and educator playfully reinterpreting textile techniques and traditions.
This work is part of a series of floating fragment drawings using found and made objects.
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Julie Gough
Despite her very best intentions and efforts Julie Gough was unable to participate in The Democracy of Drawing real space exhibition at AirSpace Projects. She has been juggling many commitments during which time she succumbed to a bout of unwellness. This is Julie’s virtual contribution.
Julie has been dealing with some horror deadlines that include the completion of a book chapter, a tax acquittal and making and editing a new film work ODE, 2014, which opened in March in a group exhibition called THE SKULLBONED EXPERIMENT at QVMAG Launceston. This exhibition will be travelling to UNSW Galleries, COFA, in June/July 2014. Julie has also been working on projects in Sydney and Adelaide.
Julie was based on Flinders Island for a week in early March filming another artist, Lola Greeno, all the while feeling very dodgy. She took her art materials but couldn’t find the time or the feeling to make anything, she felt, was worthwhile.
“I was – as a last ditch effort – on the Lady Barron pier at night while squid were being caught hoping to do a squid ink drawing on 6 March – but three of those came up inkless – and I knew all hope was dashed. I have 3 drops of ink on my cotton rag paper!”
We love Julie Gough for trying and what she has proven is that she is just as fallible as the rest of us but more superhuman than most. Julie’s participation manifests as this story and the ‘three drops of squid ink’ imaged above. We do wish Julie Gough all the best with her wonderful projects and hope to see her work at AirSpace Projects in the future.
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Anne Harry
Rorschach’s Bees, 2014. Plywood, synthetic wood (wardrobe door), three works, each 43 x 21cm. Photo credit: Anne Harry.
Anne Harry cooks, works with timber, keeps bees and occasionally finds time to teach. A graduate in Furniture Design from the University of Tasmania, Anne’s work is process based.
Initially linked more closely with bees and their ability to draw wax, this work explores the anxiety of bee keeping.
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Kendal Heyes
Untitled I and II (2 drawings), 2008. Pokerwork on paper, 32.5 x 31.5cm (framed). Photo credit: Kendal Heyes.
Kendal Heyes is an artist and art lecturer who works experimentally with a range of mediums, moving between drawing, printmaking, painting and photography. He recently completed a practice-based PhD on drawing and time at UNSW, and currently lectures in photography at the University of Wollongong.
These pokerwork drawings are from a series that set up dialogues between different depictions of time. In each drawing I set a figurative image of a narrative fragment or stilled moment in time, against an abstract one of something following its course or shifting in an interval or passage of time.
http://www.kendalheyes.blogspot.com
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Fiona Hooton
Blown Off Course, 2014. Digital print on canvas. 78 x 63cm. Photo credit: Fiona Hooton.
As an artist based in Canberra, I am interested in what is and isn’t memorialised, in subsumed memories of place and the nexus between public and private spaces. More recent works experiment with finding new spatial arts practices to engage people in aspects of place. As an arts worker I frequently create large-scale events as participatory experiences that involve the audience as part of the act of composition or design.
The work for the Democracy of Drawing exhibition connects three little known narratives to locations on a map. Each narrative reveals a struggle for the democratic rights of liberty, equality and fraternity. Viewers are encouraged to navigate their way to these digital stories, by scanning QR codes embedded in the map.
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Shalini Jardin
astral gesture, 2013. Acrylic on marine plywood, 15 x 15cm. Photo credit: Shalini Jardin.
Shalini Jardin is a Sydney based artist working in the field of drawing/painting and installation.
This work forms a series that draws upon notions of parallel realities and alternate ways of being/perceiving.
Shalini Jardin in represented by Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney.
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Lindsay Kelley
Dysphagiac 1, 2014. Ink on paper, 42 x 60cm. Photo credit: Lindsay Kelley.
Lindsay Kelley’s art practice and scholarship explore how the experience of eating changes when technologies are being eaten. She is an associate Lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW and is also an International Research Fellow at the Centre for Fine Art Research, Birmingham City University.
The inability to swallow (dysphagia) marks a turn away from humanist conceptions of sustenance. The dysphagiac turns inward, finding dining companions in plasticities of the stomach, potentials of the feeding tube, and the interior rumblings of the human microbiome.
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Gillian Lavery
Trace, 2014. Ink on rice paper, 38 x 38cm. Photo credit: Gillian Lavery.
Re-Trace, 2014. Ink on tracing paper, 38 x 38cm. Photo credit: Gillian Lavery.
Gillian Lavery is a Sydney based artist who interrogates notions of time, space and memory through a range of textile and drawing processes.
Blind continuous line drawing highlights the act of focused looking. The subsequent cutting out of the drawn line allows a re-seeing, an attention to the original line drawn unseen, and a release of the line from the page.
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Hyun-Hee Lee
Six Prayers, 2013. Hanji paper, ink, silk thread on canvas. 50 x 75cm. Photo credit: Hyun-Hee Lee.
I was awarded the John Coburn Emerging Artist Award in the Blake Art Prize also the National Art School residency at the Cite International des Arts, Paris. Currently I am completing my MFA at COFA.
My work is related to my personal yet universal story and exemplifies the cross cultural connections between Western and Asian beliefs and practices.
Hyun-Hee Lee is represented by Artereal Gallery, Sydney
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Chelsea Lehmann
Elective Affinities 1 (after Goya), 2011. Pen on cardboard with cardboard frame, 31 x 31cm. Photo credit: Chelsea Lehmann.
Chelsea Lehmann works primarily in painting and drawing, using various sources including historical paintings to explore conjunctures of images within pictorial space. Her current work employs scientific imaging techniques such as x-ray and processes of erasure to reveal the layers of a painting as a kind of fertile relativity, positing the painted archive as a ‘live field of data’.
This drawing after Goya’s ‘Figures dancing in a circle from Los Disparates’ (1816-23) adopts the visual language of art historical works using humble materials such as a beer coaster and cardboard.
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Dawn-Joy Leong
Doodle Dreams, 2013. Ink on linen, 70 x 70cm. Photo credit: Dawn-Joy Leong.
Autistic multi-artist, autism advocate, eternal student of life, flipping the pages of imagination, dancing around polyrhythmic-chromatic-pandiatonic mental fires, flying and falling, meandering in and out of discombobulation, gazing at pulchritude, picking up sound waves, humming in and out of tune, obsessing about greyhound digestion, embracing new ways to sense and be. Accompanied on amazing adventures by my faithful companion, former racing greyhound, Lucy, what more can anyone ask for?
It is not my intention to ‘fix’ what is ‘broken,’ but rather to empower beauty in the imperfect and vulnerable.
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Li Wenmin
Outsider, 2013, Ceramics, 41 x 28cm. Photo credit: Li Wenmin.
Trapped, 2013, Ceramics, 27 x 28cm. Photo credit: Li Wenmin.
Li Wenmin, born in China, lives and works in Sydney. She was awarded PhD of Fine Arts in Drawing by UNSW in 2009. Li lectures at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW.
I have been interested in searching possible means to translate my experiences and understanding of cross-cultural issues in drawing practice and research.
Li Wenmin is represented by Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney.
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Wendy Loefler
Antarctica, en plein air, 2012. Watercolour and charcoal pencil on paper, two pieces, 23 x 30cm each. Photo credit: Wendy Loefler.
Drawing is central to Wendy Loefler’s practice. Her work is fundamentally an investigation of space and scale. She mainly uses charcoal and works on paper on a large scale. Her primary subject for many years has been the desert. In early 2012 she travelled to the Antarctic Peninsula to prepare for a solo exhibition in 2013. She lives and works in Sydney.
Sometimes to work en plein air is to experience an intense and intimate encounter, an interlude of uncomplicated connection. Trying to draw, confronted by the vastness and unfamiliarity of Antarctica, I felt out of my depth. The landscape was never still, seen from the ever-moving ship. The studies I made, however, are able to call up, for me at least, the sense of wonder I experienced on the journey.
http://www.wendyloefler.com.au/
Wendy Loefler is represented by Australian Galleries, Sydney
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Fiona MacDonald
Mining Jericho, 2013. Digital drawing on manipulated digital photograph, 70 x 52cm.
Fiona MacDonald is known for her installations of bodies of work that draw on local cultural traditions, social and natural history. Her work takes the form of ‘conversations’ about undercurrents in social processes of inclusion and exclusion.
The tiny Bimblebox Nature Refuge lies within the massive Galilee Basin in Central Queensland. Mining Galilee peels away residues of history overlaying the economic and emotional conflict between energy resources and natural heritage through the use of archival material and contemporary digital drawing.
http://www.fiona-macdonald.net and
Fiona MacDonald is represented by Cross Art Projects, Sydney
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Kim Mahood
The Road to Maryvale, 2014. Gouache and pastel, 12 x 62cm. Photo credit: Kim Mahood.
Kim Mahood is a writer and visual artist who lives on the outskirts of Canberra and spends several months each year working in remote Australia. Her published writing includes non-fiction, fiction and essays and her artwork is held in state and national institutions.
The patterns and repetitions of the desert form an iconography that is elusive and persistent. My drawing and painting is a response to the country I am always trying to learn.
Kim Mahood is represented by Helen Maxwell
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Francesca Mataraga
elisabet drawing (stripes in cork mat shape), 2012. Watercolour and pencil on paper, 80 x 80cm. Photo credit: Francesca Mataraga.
Francesca Mataraga is a Sydney based artist. Her practice is cross-disciplinary and extends into the areas of expanded painting, sculpture, drawing and installation.
The work ‘elisabet drawing (stripes in cork mat shape)’ belongs to a suite of works that experiment with the scale and application of specific IKEA fabric patterns. Other works in the series include a site-specific painting at Queen St Studios (Frasers).
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Damian Moss
Reconstructed Faith, 2013. Ink and charcoal on Hahnemulhe paper, 40 x 50cm. Photo credit: Michel Brouet.
Damian Moss is an artist and lecturer based in Sydney. Over the past decade he has made predominately black and white abstract images.
‘Reconstructed Faith’ situates itself between drawing and collage. It is an ambiguous picture – an abstract image that is, in fact, a faithful copy of an existing collage.
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Sarah Newall
Untitled (Lego-Blue), 2013. Acrylic paint on German timber panel (plywood and beech wood), 15 x 20 x 3cm. Image credit: Sarah Newall.
Untitled (green), 2013. Acrylic paint on German timber panel (plywood and beech wood),15 x 15 x 3cm.
Untitled (nz herbs), 2013. Acrylic, copic markers, gliter pens, clear adhesive, on rag paper on German timber panel (plywood and beech wood),15 x 15 x 3cm.
Untitled (pink), 2013. Acrylic paint on German timber panel, (plywood and beech wood), 15 x 15 x 3cm.
Sarah Newall is a Sydney based artist and lectures in the School of Media at SCA and CoFA. She is trained in traditional hand-drawn animation and crossed over into painting / installation when the conveyer belt production line of commercially driven animation got too much. Having completed a PhD in 2010 she is now co-directing Marrickville Garage and the Bammy Residency.
Newall’s practice is informed by ordinary everyday life, how this experience shapes our understanding and how it is organised into an aesthetic experience.
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Anie Nheu
Strung with Promises, 2012. Mixed media. 77.5 x 68cm. Photo credit: Lyrebird Photography.
Chinese born in Taiwan. Australian working in Sydney.
I use forms, space and lines to bring the intangible into the visible realm.
http://anie-nheu.artabase.net/
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Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran
Box, 2013. Red terracotta, ceramic underglaze, pencil and glaze, 30 x 30 x 30cm (variable).
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is a Sydney based painter and ceramicist.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s practice spans 2 and 3 dimensional forms. Through these mediums, he attempts to produce a celebratory, phallocentric discourse that is critically aware of normative frameworks of misogyny, patriarchy and heteronormativity.
http://www.ramesh-nithiyendran.com
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Valerie Odewahn
On The Road New Mexico 2014 River / Ladder / Mesa / Bomb, 2014. Copper alloy discs, 4 x 30mm. Image credit: AirSpace Projects.
Valerie has been working in wood, metal jewellery and wood all her life.
I make sketches on the road working directly into metal as in the tradition of convict love tokens.
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Out-of-Sync (Maria Miranda and Norie Neumark)
Expressing the Unspeakable, after Tan Ping’s ‘A Line’, 2013. Artist scroll books (2) + 2 pieces of brown coal from La Trobe Valley, Victoria. 296 x 28cm (each book). Photo credit: Maria Miranda.
Engaged with questions of culture, place and memory, Norie Neumark and Maria Miranda collaborate as Out-of-Sync. They have maintained a collaborative art practice for over 20 years.
In A Line Tan Ping brings together the ancient Chinese art of Calligraphy with modern Western abstract art. After this, we draw with coal, underlining an unspoken East West connection, the Australian dirty coal that fuels China’s polluted modernity.
http://coalfaces.tumblr.com
http://www.out-of-sync.com
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Yiwon Park
Wings of Desire, 2014. Gouache on paper, 38 x 55cm. Photo credit: Yiwon Park.
Yiwon Park is an emerging Sydney artist who grew up in Korea and immigrated to Australia in 2003. Yiwon have been exhibited in both Korea and Australia and has showed her work in places like FirstDraft gallery, Tinshed gallery at Sydney University, 4A centre for contemporary Asian Art, DNA project in Australia and Shinhan gallery in Seoul.
My art practice materialises the process of exploring individual and shared insecurities. Autobiographical narratives are explored through personal symbols in drawing, painting, sculpture and installation.
http://yiwonpark.blogspot.com.au/
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Sue Pedley
Gandhi’s Ashram, 2014. Photocopied paper, 85 x 90cm. Photo credit: Sue Pedley
Sue Pedley studied at the Tasmanian School of Art (1984), Stadelschule, Germany (1986), Sydney College of the Arts (1990) and College of Fine Art (1997). Recent residencies include Asialink, Sri Lanka (2001); The Banff Art Centre, Canada (2008); Echigo Tsumari Triennial 2006, Setouchi Triennial 2010, Tokyo Wonder Site, 2012, Japan; LARQ (Land Art Research Queenstown) Tasmania (2011). Drawing is integral to Sue’s art practice.
On a recent three-week textile field trip to Gujarat in India with COFA design students I created one hundred drawings. We visited Gandhi’s Ashram in Ahmendabad on Republic Day (January 25). These are copies of the drawings I made that day.
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Jane Polkinghorne
Doodles 1-14, 2012-present. Pencil, pen and texta on paper, various sizes.
Jane Polkinghorne works individually and collaboratively with Helen Hyatt-Johnston as The Twilight Girls making installations and large-scale photographic works. She works across a variety of media including film/video, installation, photography, sculpture and performance.
Polkinghorne’s visual practice demonstrates a fixation on the ridiculousness, horror and pathos of her own experience of the body with a focus on a feminist, bodily, humorous, interpretation of representation and popular culture. In using humour, disgust and some of the exploitation tropes of B-grade cinema she attempts to both integrate and counter representations of power and gender. Her work parodies and critiques tele-visual representations of bodies, feminine and masculine, in disgusting and ridiculous scenarios of repulsion and compulsion.
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Emma Price
Simply Read, 2014. Digital photograph on Ilford Smooth Pearl with Archival ink (edition of 3). Photo credit: Sophie Roberts.
Printed at COFA | Art Designer Media dpcs@unsw.edu.au 89360662
Lover. Fighter. Thinker. Drinker. Dancer. Romancer. Collaborator. Celebrator.
In the grand tradition of the great 80’s/90’s oratory poets such as Phil Collins, Chris De Burgh and Bryan Adams, Mick Hucknall of Avant Garde pop-funk fusion collective ‘Simply Red’ said it best. “If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never, never know me”. Word.
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Margaret Roberts
Architectural Compositions with Corner, 2014. Cut ply and found space, variable dimensions. Image credit: Margaret Roberts.
Margaret Roberts has exhibited in Australia and overseas since about 1990. She also works in the National Art School Drawing Department and is a co-director of Articulate project space in Leichhardt.
‘Architectural Compositions with Corner’ separates the two parts of each of Wladyslaw Strzeminski’s 1929 Architectural Compositions 10c, 11c, and 12c and leans each part across a corner, so as to allow actual space into the drawing they make of the paintings they represent. I hope that Strzeminski would be happy enough with this remake of his work because he wrote at length about his interest in relationships between painting and actual space. This work is part of a broader interest in the relationships between the space within artworks, and the space in which they are located, and in devising ways in which both can be recognised and valued.
http://www.margaretroberts.org
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Catherine Rogers
Mornington, 2010. Oil pastel on Arches Aquarelle, 2 drawings each: 38 x 57cm. Photo credit: Catherine Rogers
Photographer and binge drawer of landscapes in the landscape for over 35 years.
Part of a series of drawings made on a wildlife conservation property, ‘Mornington’, in the Kimberley Ranges. Drawings made over 2 months while camping there.
http://www.catherinerogers.com.au
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Sylvia Ross
C’est un Dessin, 2014. Paper (framed).
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Vanessa Russ
Black Rocks Series 2 (three works), 2014. Charcoal on paper, 24 x 18cm. Photo credit: Vanessa Russ
Vanessa Russ is a contemporary artist from the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Her artwork has recently featured in Mundaring Arts Centre’s Third Space Exhibition (2013) and the Revealed: Emerging Aboriginal Artists from Western Australia Exhibition (2011).
Vanessa’s works are about memory, particularly memories of home. Like a rivers water mark, memory reminds us of who we are and where we are going; it helps to reconnect us to the things that give life meaning and for Vanessa, meaning comes from country.
http://www.vanessaruss.com.au/index.php
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Nuha Saad
After the Fall – Full Circle, 2014. Vintage wallpaper, acrylic paint, coloured pencil, 34 x 34 x 4cm. Photo credit: Nuha Saad.
Nuha Saad studied at City Art Institute and Sydney College of the Arts and is a practising artist living in Sydney.
Nuha Saad works in between assemblage, painting and sculpture, combining ready‐made objects and colour in a variety of configurations.
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Marlene Sarroff
Illuminous, 2012. PVC, wooden support frame, 36 x 28 x 8cm. Photo credit: Marlene Sarroff.
Marlene Sarroff is a Sydney based artist working in installation, three dimensional objects and wall works. She studied at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Her work has been exhibited in Australia, France, United States Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Marlene is concerned with transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Her interest is focussed on found objects and everyday mass produced materials. She frees these ‘things’ by disassociation, estranging them, removing them from their context so they can become: forms, colours, and lines, The aim is simply to bring ‘things’ together as far as possible in an unaltered state allowing the juxtaposed materials to speak for themselves. Various methods of process are employed and determined by the material, challenging pre-existing perceptions of such materials and relate to them on a new level.
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Kurt Schranzer
Lop-Lop’s First Quantum Flight (for Wang Meng 王蒙), 2013, Giclée print, pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 42 x 29.7 cm. Edition of 6.
Signed and inscribed reverse with title, date, and edition number.
Kurt Schranzer is a Sydney-based artist and lecturer whose principle practice is drawing.
The democracy of drawing, collage and print … a charming form, dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike (with apologies to Plato).
Kurt Schranzer is represented by Jason Martin, Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
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Peter Sharp
Handful, 2009- 2011. Charcoal on six pieces of paper A4 or smaller. Photo credit: Peter Sharp.
Peter Sharp is an artist whose primary activity is drawing from nature and its machinations. This interrogation leads to other poetic interpretations of the original form.
These drawings were made from the hand fragment of the sculpture ‘The Winged Victory Figure of Samothrace’ in the Louvre in France.
http://www.liverpoolstreetgallery.com.au
Peter Sharp is represented by Liverpool Street Gallery
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Jack Stahel
Information Chart V, 2014. Ink on paper, 75 x 65 cm. Photo credit: Jack Stahel.
Jack Stahel is an imaginary scientist. Drawing from areas of neuroscience, psychology, metaphysics and epistemology, he is interested in an alternative methodology of mind research focused on the advantages of a personal and individual approach through experience. After all, the mind can be said to be definitively, the brains experience of itself.
Drawing is the oldest form of language in human existence, and one that finds its beginnings in the compulsion to communicate mental experiences. It can involve innumerable levels of consciousness, and partially conscious activity is by definition an experience that defies a fully conscious comprehension. This, together with its ability to act simultaneously as both an experience and a recording of experience, allows drawing to remain both a curious fascination and its own means to understanding itself.
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Paul Thomas
Quantum Spin, 2014. Graphite and Titanium white, 36 x 44cm. Photo credit: Paul Thomas.
Dr Paul Thomas, is Program Director of Fine Art at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Paul is the instigator and co-chair of the Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference at the intersection between Art, Science and Humanity: 2010, 2012 and 2014.
My current research project expands on my experimental, interdisciplinary work with nanotechnology and quantum theory. The current body of work will center on the task of “imaging”, both through visualization and sonification, the quantum superposition of subatomic particles.
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Mimi Tong
December, 2014. 4:3, XGA video, 4:50 minutes loop. Photo credit: Mimi Tong.
Mimi Tong works across photography, drawing and installation to explore her interest in architectural spaces and cultural experience. The act of travelling and exploring is at the core of her practice that involves experiencing and reflecting on local urban architecture and geography to consider how these are shaped by, represent and impact on social and cultural interactivity and personal identity.
December is a moving image work of sculptures inspired by the Himmeli, a Finnish Christmas decoration made from straw. Stained with sumi ink, each stem is a material calligraphic line that oscillates between a two-dimensional drawing and three-dimensional sculpture.
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Floria Tosca
I Will Not Breathe Air, 2012. Ink on toad skin, 20 x 24cm (framed). Photo credit: Floria Tosca.
Floria Tosca trained in Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is currently practising in Sydney.
This work is part of a series where I explore human relationships with animals.
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Judy Watson
freshwater lens 1, 2009. Black ink on watercolour paper, 32 x 24cm. Photo credit: Carl Warner.
http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artist/judy-watson/
Judy Watson is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
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Alana Wesley
Trails, 2013. Sound, perspex, gel and live ants, variable dimensions.
I have exhibited at MOP, Paper Plane Gallery, TAP Gallery, At the Vanishing Point and COFAspace. I work across sculpture, performance and installation.
Using a microphone to amplify the sounds made by a trail of real ants, I use drawing as a method to explore the naturally occurring lines present in the insect world.
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Deborah Alma Wheeler
Family Bed, 2013, Digital image (of sculpture fabricated by Deborah Alma Wheeler), 24″ x 36″. Photo credit: Deborah Alma Wheeler.
Deborah Alma Wheeler has exhibited nationally in the United States and internationally and has had several pieces collected by museums and galleries including Tom of Finland’s TOM House located in West Hollywood California and The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction Gallery. She received her MFA from Michigan State University and her BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Through the re-appropriation of found objects, I question social, political and cultural issues about sex, gender identity and marginalized groups. My intentions are to reveal and illuminate a hidden cultural agenda that subjugates individuals and perpetuates false stereotypical norms that accompany sex and gender identity.
http://www.deborahalmawheeler.com
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Ainsley Wilcock
Composite #5, 2014. Coloured pencil on Stonehenge paper. Photo credit: Ainsley Wilcock.
Ainsley Wilcock is an emerging Sydney based artist, originally from Wollongong. She is currently undertaking a Masters of Fine Art by Research at the College of Fine Arts.
Ainsley’s works examine the phenomenon of pareidolia through anthropomorphic grotesque aesthetics and composites. Shadows, puppetry, empty piles of clothes, and the presence or materiality of absence provide the cohesive armature of the work for these explorations.
http://www.ainsley.wilcock@gmail.com
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Margaret Withers
Knocking on Macrobius’ door (Winter).2014. Pen and ink on paper/mounted on board/sealed with wax. 22 x 31cm.
Chrysanthemum sprung (Spring). 2014. Pen and ink on paper/mounted on board/sealed with wax. 22 x 31cm.
My soul is in the sky (Summer). 2014. Pen and ink on paper/mounted on board/sealed with wax. 22 x 31cm.
Autumn’s less glitter shined (Fall), 2014. Pen and ink on paper/mounted on board/sealed with wax. 22 x 31cm.
Margaret Withers is a Brooklyn, NY based artist who explores the physics of paint and the conflicting ideas of joy, melancholy, isolation and alienation in regards to the concept of home and communication. Her artwork is included in multiple private collections and has won numerous awards including a 2013 resident fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and the Millay Colony, and a 2013 USA Project Grant.
I believe art making is a primary language that we are born with and is the means by which we communicate our creative impulses. My drawings strive to speak this language to those who are still fluent and to those who might have lost some of the words but still recognize the pitch and flow.
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AirSpace Projects 2014-2017 
Dr. Patel DDS
The Democracy of Drawing, March 2014 |