I was surprised how few pencil drawings were in this year’s Dobell at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Louise Weaver had some interesting pieces, but the only one I photographed was a segment where she’d woven/repaired the paper at the end of a piece.
Mary McDougall’s handmade clay tiles arrayed on the wall is beautiful and I’m considering doing it with my own left over bathroom tiles.
Andrew Browne’s Punctum series, of which I just photographed a few, where he has reproduced in coloured pencil punctures and cracks in wall papers and fences and etc really appealed. it WAS drawn – the reproduction of the wallpaper is just heavenly. Given how much I liked “throughness” in my own work, it touched some of the things I love.
Rosemary Lee’s high colour coloured pencil works – initially the Shrub was so intricate and with so many layers, still sits with me as outstanding. Meaghan and I wondered at the printmaking similarities – i.e. the sky, the houses, the fences, the electrical wires, the trunks and branches, the twigs…. of course how she actually approached it is going to be different, but the high colour, the immense detail, it is very beautiful.
The still life of the stools and bookshelf also reminds me how there is always something to draw!!
I’m not sure if the water colour still life with the table and the window is Rosemary Lee or maybe Jennifer Mills. The colours and lines appeal very much. and again, just draw your interiors.
Jennifer Mills drawings of photographs (her own, someone else’s) appealed, especially the John Wolseley like addition of notes and stories around the outside. I’m not sure about the addition of the green one-eyed monster from Monsters Inc, Meaghan loved it. and it does make the piece memorable. It works more effectively in the family portrait with the Addams Family faces.
Hanging near the Dobell is a Grayson Perry woodcut, very much in their vein. it is both beautiful and repulsive at once!
And then Meaghan being a member, we had coffee in the member’s lounge, where I found some Fred Williams I’ve not seen in the AGNSW yet – i wasn’t able to get close because it was above some seats whih were already occupied, but so lovely to see 4 views of the same thing – the light changes, so i assume he was doing a Monet on the thing.
