some kind of longing (grey)  2019

cotton thread, mapping pins

480 x 190 cm

some kind of longing (grey) is an ephemeral drawing that exists for the duration of its exhibition. It began as a very small and hasty scribble made in 2008 on a residency in Perth. I'd been playing around with watercolours and embroideries from recent wanderings and walkings on the roads of Darjeeling.

As happens when you find yourself in that luxurious space of only having to think or write or draw or daydream, for days and weeks on end, all manner of things float up into consciousness. Some ideas are just that and quickly forgotten. Others sit patiently waiting until you hear their soft and insistent call.

In fact, it began much earlier. As a child I was obssessed with the tiny black and white photos in our family albums and spilling out of odd envelopes. One in particular held a special fascination. It was taken by my mother, when she lived in Darjeeling as a young woman.

The performing of this work is an undertaking that I've made several times, each one slightly different. Varying blue threads, shifts in dimensions, sometimes alone in the gallery, other times in the company of others. This time the thread is grey, a colour in between black and white. It slips into the space of memory, with the recent death of my mother.   It is an accumulation of gestures, back and forth, tethering, unfurling, looping, actions that parallel the way in which memory works. The pins are anchors that form the profile of a landscape, the threads an attempt to reach back in time and draw forward an understanding of that place.

 

In the Making : Felix Allen, Gabrielle Adamik, Lizzie Buckmaster Dove, Michele Elliot, Anita Larkin, Geoff Morrell, Catriona Stanton (curator)

March-April 2019

Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong

 

Photos: Lizzie Buckmaster Dove