Edinburgh fragment drawing

Full description

The mixed media drawing work examines the ways in which artists translate encounters between Australia and the UK. The work researches an accumulation of material compiled during a 6-week residency (June-July 08 Edinburgh Festival) and contrasts this with the sketchbook form and the historical traditions of the explorer's diary (eg work in Australia of Scotsmen John McDouall Stuart 1815-66 or John Edward Eyre 1818-1901). It is like a 'reverse' explorer's journal laid out, re-assembled from many disparate notations and drawings, paintings, landscapes, mappings as well as a range of graphic markings both intentional and accidental. It suggests that, at a formal level, an interpretative re-integration of fragmented materials makes explicit a level of narrative that is implicit and hidden in colonial work. Along with work by Australian/UK artist John Wolseley (01), 'Tracing the Wallace Line', (BAG), the project presents a hybrid that is part private diary and part empirical observation of both natural and social landscapes. The interaction of these themes is the focus of many related studies on ideas of global mobility and identity, including David Blamey, ed.(02) 'Here, There, Elsewhere: Dialogues on Location and Mobility', and N. Papastergiadis (04), 'The Traffic and Ruins of Art in Globalisation', Sydney Biennale. The work forms part of a survey show of international artists working in similar fields, addressing ideas of the exchange, mobility and drawing as a communicating language. Other artists included Domenico de Clario, Maryanne Coutts, Michael Essen, Euan Heng, Tom Nicholson, Wendy Sharpe, David Thomas (Aus) and Jordan Baseman, Roger Law, Paul Rosenbloom, Anita Taylor, Stephen Farthing (UK). The Exhibition complemented 'Drawn Encounters, Complex Identities', a 2-day conference at the British School at Rome, 17/18 Sept.08, jointly organised by The Centre for Drawing, University of the Arts, London and the Department of Fine Arts, Monash University.