Cascade 2022/2023

Charcoal, pastel & paint on paper and collage on canvas boards

242 boards in order of making, total 195H x 279W cm

(12.7 x 17.8 cm each)

In October 2022, as the pandemic subsided, I began making quick portrait-based collages at my local Natimuk Café and then drove to Bermagui’s Mr Hope Café via a country pub where I initiated an unauthorised contra of a Gideon’s Bible for a bad meal. I was on a mission to simply sit with others and again revel in a wash of humanity. On returning home, this dance continued in my every-day for about one year. The paper drawing ‘plates’ were made from my life-admin scraps - relentless lists, bills, notes to self, etc - and on the back were glued pages from the Bible, including one left on the back seat of an old Volvo given to me. They ended up more psychological than polite portraits, possibly as much about the maker as the sitter, and a mark of our shared existence at that moment in time.

Through drawing and collage I filter what and who washes over me. The good, bad and in-between of the global, national, personal and every-day ... religion, politics, environment, health, family, land, etc, etc. It's like some sort of tsunami and debris is left, prime fodder for drawing, grabbing and sticking. It's a grin and grimace at the fine line between joy and grief and a kind of collective swab of the nervous system and spirit.