Paraku Memory

​Visiting Paraku in the SE Kimberley a few years back I was perched on a landscape I didn’t know. It seemed a beautiful and foreign place where knowledge belongs to a culture that is not mine. I needed to sit and listen to the land and the people who could speak for it to orient myself. It took a while to see beyond the obvious, to pick out the small breaths and quivers, the grain and grit; the accumulations forming this vast and ancient place. These drawing started their life by the fireside on that trip. I wanted to embed the place in them by scraping coals and earths across white papers. Since then the papers have rested quietly but as present as a hibernating animal within my studio to be picked up again this year. I have reworked each piece to evoke a glimpse of the place. Each piece is a time capsule of distance, cultures and memory– I hope to return one day to Paraku and feel its welcome mud upon my legs and hands

Paraku Memories
​ on display at Beaver Galleries
​as part of their SMALL WORKS exhibition 2020 ​26 NOVEMBER – 24 DECEMBER 2020

acrylic paint, charcoal, pastel, collage, scorch marks on rag paper
150  X 104 cm

​Lake Edge Memory I I, 2020
scorch marks, found charcoal, pastel, paper on birch panel 
​20 cm X 20 cm​

​Lake Edge Memory III, 2020
​scorch marks, found charcoal, pastel, paper on birch panel 
​20 cm X 20 cm​

Paraku Memory, 2020
scorch marks, found charcoal and ochre, pastel, on birch panel
​H 23 X W 30 cm

Track Side Memory, 2020
scorch marks, found charcoal and ochre, pastel, on birch panel
​H 23 X W 30 cm

Paraku Camp Memory, 2020
scorch marks, found charcoal and ochre, pastel, paper on birch panel
H 40.5 X W 30 cm 

Tanami Mud Memory, 2020
scorch marks, found charcoal and ochre, pastel, paper on birch panel
H 40.5 X W 30 cm ​

photography: The artist

back to Drawing/Mixed Media