Down River Dark, 2010

These 2-panel drawings and the considerable series of smaller ones were made over one month, staring up the Barringgi Gadyin /Wimmera River, where I live and work. It is very a particular location, still black water strewn with years of fallen branches. As a child I would accompany my father there duck-shooting, dutifully holding the cartridges and watching birds fall into the water. We would also fish there, my father warning never to go in after a snagged spinner, as you'd likely get caught up and drown. Later it struck me that his fear was because he could not swim. For a long time, that place felt heavy.

On returning there in 2010, I wanted to take on that heaviness, to sit with it over time and through drawing hopefully mediate it. Each night at dusk I stared up the river as the light receded and the sky, trees and water gradually faded into black.