Finalist Dobell Drawing Prize #22

For many years I have drawn my local dog park. I am fascinated by its existence, hidden behind a dense screen of trees within the highly regulated fabric of an inner city suburb. I study the dogs and the landscape carefully, then draw them, observing the changes and movements. I feel I know my subject intimately – but never totally. As I draw, the charcoal makes a soft sound on the taut, stretched paper, shapes and textures form, almost without conscious effort.

Bushfires now threaten where they never have before. Far from the fires, cities are blanketed by a smoky haze. The knowledge that, at its source, life and death dramas are playing our, casts a pall over landscape and people. Covid 19 follows and uncertainty reigns. New patterns form and protocols form. The two dogs approach each other – ready to fight or play? Or is it just one dog and its reflection?

Watercolour, charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 120 x 90 cm