Introspection: New Drawings 2008

In Introspection, I continued the explorations of the northern headland of Gamay (Botany Bay), that I had begin with my previous year’s show Headland. Over the time of these explorations (on foot and in my studio), I was undergoing a brutal form of chemo-therapy, and my own head-land felt as if it had been invaded by an alien force. Somehow this seemed to fit with the paranoia of the area I was visiting and drawing. The work from those years is dark, in keeping with my mood, but also in keeping with the history of that place — the first frontier of this continent. The strange half-submerged bunkers of World War II fortifications seemed like an extension of my brain. The graffiti scratched into their burnt walls seemed etched into my synapses.

Oddly, when I escaped into my work during that dark period, I found a new freedom.