OPENING: Dobell Drawing Prize #23 // Laura Baker ‘Corrugated Town’
August 25
@
8:00 am
–
5:00 pm
Get ready to celebrate the best of Australian drawing as the Dobell Drawing Prize #23 kicks off its regional tour in Bathurst!
The Dobell Drawing Prize is Australia’s leading prize for drawing, an unparalleled celebration of technique, innovation, and expanded approaches to drawing by acclaimed and emerging drawing practitioners. The biennial prize began 30 years ago at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1993 as the Dobell Prize for Drawing and is now presented by the National Art School in partnership with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation.
The Dobell Drawing Prize #23 touring exhibition showcases over 45 finalist artworks that respond to the Prize’s fundamental question: what is drawing? The answers are compelling, challenging, and exhilarating, in an astonishing array of mediums and materials, from traditional pencil and graphite on paper to salt, staples and rust; from resin, fibreglass, enamel and wood to intricate three-dimensional wire objects; bodily video performance to sculptural forms built with tea bags and bamboo. The exhibition is a vital tribute to the human ingenuity and imagination that arises from the simple act of making a mark and represents a singular gauge for the breadth and dynamism of current drawing practices in Australia.
Laura Baker: Corrugated Town
Crumbly buildings with tin roofs, chicken wire fences and hand-painted signs. The small town we grew up in; got stuck in; left; returned to; retired to; resign to.
Australian country towns have long been criticised for their unsympathetic design. Scarce funds are spread across large land, resulting in reoccurring potholes during wet summers, and businesses closing during drought, bushfire, and flood. The weather is always too hot; too dry; too wet; too.
But through rarely relenting adversity presses the spirit of the people. These are communities and homes and farms and livelihoods. Lived together. Supporting each other.
Through a reflective and laborious practice, fragile representations explore the harsh qualities of the Australian landscape. Fences, buildings and annual fallen leaves appear, suggesting a nostalgia, acceptance, and appreciation of this place.
This is an ode to the regional town; a body of work celebrating the unique landscape of power lines, uneven footpaths and corrugated everything.
Image: Dobell Drawing Prize #23 Opening at National Art School, artworks by Iluwanti Ken (back left) and Joanna Gambotto (front right). Photo: Peter Morgan.
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