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2002 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc

 

Exhibition promotes drawing

 

The Bakehouse Gallery at Patonga is to follow a recent exhibition of Chinese watercolours, with a special exhibition to promote drawing.

The Chinese watercolour exhibition attracted over 600 visitors in six days and a survey indicated that many came as a result of an article in the Peninsula News.

According to gallery owners Jocelyn Maughan and Robin Norling, drawing for many years has taken a back seat in art education, with conceptual and philosophical influences having overtaken the skills of observation and rendering.

The pair says there is a recent resurgent interest in drawing, which is evident in two major prizes - the Dobell Award, and the Kedumba Drawing Prize - but the works selected in these competitions have a strong conceptual basis.

The Art Gallery of NSW is currently showing the works from the daily travel sketchbooks of the late Lloyd Rees.

Many art schools now claim to teach drawing.

Yet for all this, Jocelyn and Robin say that skills and techniques are dirty words, learning and language should not restrict its application, and naivety and clumsiness seem to be mistaken for originality.

The Bakehouse Gallery will be open to the public with the aim of showing that drawing can be vital, alive, expressive, sensitive, and that skill and talent are valuable assets.

There are pencil, watercolour and pen drawings of a wide range of subject matter, quick sketches and detailed studies.

The Bakehouse is open every Sunday, 11am to 3pm, until the end of May.

Letter, April 2