The Oyster Eye

BACKGROUND
There has been a strong international focus on drawing over the past decade with major survey exhibitions such as the Rothschild¿s Collection at MOMA, in New York 2007. In more recent years there has been an emphasis on cross-cultural drawing exhibitions. Peter Ellis has a 40-year career in drawing, and the work. The Oyster Eye extends the use of both cultural materials of Shikish Japanese panel and Chinese calligraphy and the potential scale of multiple panel ink drawing. The on going use of animal imagery and contemporary Surrealist transformations are concerns that at the forefront of his research that are relevant in contemporary art practice.
SIGNIFICANCE
The individual work ¿ Oyster Eye¿ was a centerpiece for the solo exhibition of the same name at Langford 120, Gallery which is supported by the Global Centre for Drawing and has a peer review process and an exhibitions committee for the selection of artists. The catalogue ISBN 978-1-921426-87-2, The Oyster Eye, Langford 120 contains the essay, Hill. P, ¿Of Oyster Eyes and Overdue Library Books.¿ The individual multi paneled work The Oyster Eye was acquired by the RMIT Gallery Committee for the RMIT University Art Collection, in 2012. The work is featured in 2 other publications, Edquist. H and Grierson. E, A Guide to the Architecture and Art of RMIT University, 2nd ed. 2013, RMIT University Press. & Davies. S, Hill.P, A Head in a Hive of Bees, Peter Ellis, Selected Drawings 2013, RMIT Gallery, ISBN 9780980771053,
CONTRIBUTION
This work is in response to the artists¿ research into the concepts of the contemporary use of Zen Philosophy, coupled with Dadaist methodologies of chance, paradox and fantasy. The additional research into the use of scientific data and diagrams, automatic drawing and 14th Century Chinese and Japanese calligraphy extends the research possibilities for Asian cultural motifs and techniques of ink painting to expand an individual Surrealist art form.