Chattershapes (mechanism of gardens)

BACKGROUND The exhibition, Freehand: Recent Australian Drawings, presents work by 25 Australian artists (including Del Kathryn Barton and Peter Booth) encompassing representational and figurative works, abstract, gestural, geometric and conceptual drawing, as well as incorporating a variety of methods and materials, from pen on paper to sound works and wall drawings. The research for Chattershapes was framed by key texts on representation and discourse (including David Green and Peter Seddon, History Painting Reassessed: the Representation of History in Contemporary Art, 2000), and film essays on representation and pictorial space in scroll painting, cinema and landscape painting (such as David Hockney and Philip Haas, A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China, 1988), and pluralizing practices in the work of Joshua Mosley that contest European 'historicising' traditions. The work is a paper scroll installed across a horizontal table framed by texts. The paper support becomes a repository for cut and montaged sections of perceptual drawings, gestural artefacts, texts and imagined imagery. CONTRIBUTION This innovative work researches an expanded field of drawing as a method of historical narrative. Focusing on the 'panorama' as both 'seeing' and 'projection' the work considers how contemporary drawing practices engage with 18th century Enlightenment themes of rational and irrational vision, embodied in the genres of History Painting and the early Scottish Gothic novel. SIGNIFICANCE Selected by Linda Michael, senior curator, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, for a national survey of practices in drawing, Robert Nelson, The Age, described Chattershapes as "a delicate work of uncertain intentions but sufficiently rich to make you contemplate the details and try to connect them" (19.2.11). The catalogue includes essays by Michael and Domenico de Clario; Deanna Petherbridge, Professor of Drawing, University of the Arts, London delivered a floor talk.