Drawing – sites of discovery 2000-2010
Alex makes drawings to ground his visual ideas. He finds drawing to be a flexible way in which to view the world and works on varied locations such as Australian national heritage parks, Local Melbourne environments, as well as European Museums and Urban sites outside of Australia. For the most part he limits his drawing mediums to just pencil and ink and finds that a primary experience of mark making allows him to develop a sensibility and rebore for his subjects. Alex actively uses drawing to develop his painting practice in his studio. Before making any painting he makes a crude sketch on brown paper so as to realise how imagery works to scale. In further developing figurative components he tests how shapes may work, drawing, cutting and sticking paper directly onto the painted canvas. His intuitive approach to drawing includes working with crude instructional lines as well as developing intricate marks that appear to bring out his subject in jewel like appearance.
I enjoy the immediacy and instinctual experience of drawing. Location work can be interesting. Once I spent hours on a camp chair in the middle of a median strip drawing trees in the busy traffic. The memories of making visual work on location such as this make their way into other studio drawings and future paintings.