Manifesto Drawing (Mop)

Curated by Dr Irene Barberis, 'Contemporary Australian Drawings 1' was a new survey on Australian drawing as part of the international Drawing Out conference. Artists included Jenny Watson, John Wolsley, Hilary Mais and Creek. In this work Creek explores Rosalind E. Krauss' idea of an expanded field of sculpture and the role of the indexical mark. Creek's work suggests just as the process of drawing and assembling material in a narrative field reveals knowledge it is also revealed through how the form is experienced. As part of a series of works, 'Manifesto Drawing (Mop)' examines the drawing in its verb sense in sculptural terms. Exploring the concept of drawing as public gesture based upon Bertold Brecht's concept 'social gest' in Barthes, R., 'Diderot, Brecht and Eisenstein' (1977), Creek installs a material structure or ground on which a mopped graphic gesture is performed or marked - manifesting a grotesque, or possible social gesture, on paper in a public space. The work is supported by both the ground and the wall manifesting also as a gesture in space.
Creek's work forms part of the larger 'Drawing Out Conference' research agenda that psychological space can be made to coexist with pictorial space, enabling a personal revision of history. The exhibition formed part of the RMIT University & University of Arts London Drawing Out conference. Special addresses were made by Roostein Hopkins, Professor of Drawing Stephen Farthing (UK). Artists were featured in the publication Dr Janet McKenzie's 'Contemporary Australian Drawing' (2011).