Deluge
2008
Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne 2008
This series of drawings began in 2007 and exhibited toward the end of 2008 at Tolarno Galleries, are all started in front of a nude model. Once a week I have a model in my studio for a 3-hour drawing session. All of these drawings have developed from quite realistic observations, drawings no. 18 and no.9 and 12 show these beginnings best. The drawing sessions proceed from quite quick poses, which are rubbed back to allow for drawings done from slightly longer poses, as the marks start to build up on the paper the drawing starts to become something of an excavation of mark making. It is when the autonomy of the individual figures start to become overwhelmed by the linear composition that the drawing starts to declare itself. Most often these drawings were finished in front of the model, some with two dates were worked on later. The idea of a deluge, a washing away, a cleansing, a flooding, a catastrophe. In these drawings a flood of mark making all referencing the body, produces this collision of parts, bodies collide as a composition comes to the surface. Drawing no.1 appears to be showing a deluge of mental activity, the swamp of the past. This exhibition was comprised of 37 drawings and 3 paintings; the three paintings are based on two of the earlier drawings. There is a fourth painting based on the coloured pencil drawing included in the show. This painting was made after the exhibition. The deluge series of drawings continues, I have added a few each year since 2008 under this title.
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