Ker­rie Poli­ness | ArtsHub Exhi­bi­tion Review: Infi­nite: Dobell Aus­tralian Draw­ing Bien­ni­al 2024, AGNSW

Would you con­sid­er a solar-mech­a­nised piece of char­coal dragged across a mar­ble stone, or four kilo­me­tres of string pinned cor­ner-to-cor­ner, a drawing?

These are two con­sid­er­a­tions among a group of 10 artists who expand what draw­ing can be. You can see their work in the 2024 edi­tion of the Dobell Aus­tralian Draw­ing Bien­ni­al, at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGN­SW).

The Bien­ni­al grew out of the long-run­ning Dobell Draw­ing Prize, and has been pre­sent­ed since 2014 (apart from 2022 due to COVID). Anne Ryan has been charged with the task of curat­ing the Bien­ni­al, and has cre­at­ed a crack­er exhi­bi­tion this year – arguably its best yet.

Using abstrac­tion as the foun­da­tion con­nect­ing these 10 artists, Ryan push­es draw­ing as far as she can, in terms of how mate­ri­als are used to rethink draw­ing prac­tice. Vis­i­tors get to con­sid­er the medi­um as a per­for­ma­tive exer­cise and as a med­i­ta­tive one, and as one that can blur the bound­aries of instal­la­tion, sculp­ture and animation.

The link­ing thread is the role that endurance plays in the draw­ing prac­tice of these artists.

A great exam­ple is the work of Emma Field­en (NSW), who has used a cus­tom-made sil­ver pipe – aka a flute – that she also plays while draw­ing with its tip onto a board. She ref­er­ences a very old tech­nique of sil­ver print­ing, expand­ing it into con­tem­po­rary practice.

Made over the peri­od of a week in the gallery, each mark is a flu­id move­ment in sync with the breath and the note. Ryan notes it was mes­meris­ing to watch, and vis­i­tors can view these pieces with the sound­scape from their making.

Mov­ing from some­thing so labour inten­sive and ana­logue to new tech­nolo­gies is the work of Cameron Rob­bins, Helio Ephemera (2022). His draw­ing is cre­at­ed by a solar-pow­ered mechan­i­cal arm that draws a line across a ron­del of mar­ble – the pace deter­mined by the sun. He is effec­tive­ly hand­ing over the draw­ing process to nature.

While, again, this is mes­meris­ing to pon­der, Rob­bins asks some big ques­tions with his piece in terms of how ener­gies keep the plan­et going, our use of those ener­gies, and – with an ephemer­al draw­ing that is reg­u­lar­ly wiped from the mar­ble slab – about the per­ma­nen­cy of the man-made intervention.

Rob­bins’ piece sits cen­tral to the exhi­bi­tion, which is loose­ly divid­ed into 10 alcoves across three gal­leries – Ryan giv­ing each artist the space to real­ly play out their prac­tice – unlike the ear­li­er Dobell Draw­ing Prize, which relied on sin­gle entries to explore the medium’s diversity.

This has been the win of the Biennial’s devel­op­ment, and it ele­vates the role – even sta­tus – placed on draw­ing practice.

In the first gallery, and with­in sight of Rob­bins’ work, is anoth­er artist using the cir­cle motif. Ceara Metlikovec’s The Path of the Solar Bar­que (2024) is cre­at­ed by using a builder’s scribe to score into pinewood. The metic­u­lous web of lines is built up over time, while lis­ten­ing to music. “[Met­likovec] sees sound in the earth, in struc­tures,” explains Ryan.

That sense of task-dri­ven, imposed para­me­ters for draw­ing is fur­ther explored by Kate Vas­sal­lo, who uses a set of 100 colour pen­cils, which are laid out in a set order, and fol­lows ​‘rules’ – aka when they can be sharp­ened, what direc­tion the line can be drawn, the start­ing and end point – to cre­ate her incred­i­ble suite of works on paper. They are the high­light of this exhibition.

They link nice­ly to works by Helen Eager, San­dra Selig and Ker­rie Poli­ness – mov­ing from pen­cil on paper to ani­ma­tion, to instal­la­tion and to wall drawings.

Eager has expand­ed her focused obses­sion with the tri­an­gle into new ani­mat­ed forms, that are shown along­side a grid pre­sen­ta­tion of their source draw­ings. The ani­ma­tion seem­ing­ly vibrates off the wall, and is an excit­ing new devel­op­ment to her work.

Ryan’s place­ment next to San­dra Selig’s string draw­ing makes sense as that drawn line con­tin­ues to take flight. For a cor­ner of the gallery, she has used around 800 nails to install her web line draw­ing, which takes its cue from sine waves, used to explain ener­gy forces. I am remind­ed of the work of US artist Fred Sand­back using the wall and string to com­plete his spa­tial drawings.

Poli­ness, whose work I haven’t seen for a while, is just as pol­ished as ever. How­ev­er, it is clear to see that she is com­pli­cat­ing her wall draw­ings – ele­ments of her grids seem­ing­ly removed. Like Vas­sal­lo she is work­ing with self-imposed rules and propo­si­tions, to force her draw­ing into a more rig­or­ous, ele­vat­ed prac­tice. The per­for­ma­tive aspect of her work means it sits beau­ti­ful­ly togeth­er with that of Vas­sal­lo and Field­en, with­out being obvious.

A final nod needs to be giv­en to Matthew Allen for his stun­ning sur­faces of pol­ished graphite, metic­u­lous­ly bur­nished by hand – Ryan again bring­ing in that con­nect­ing aspect of endurance in many draw­ing prac­tices. Allen has also pushed his prac­tice with a new addi­tion of acrylic colour tiles in con­tract to the graphite – a great new step.

This exhi­bi­tion ele­vates draw­ing from out­dat­ed per­cep­tions that it just a foun­da­tion­al process. These 10 artists col­lec­tive­ly present a vibrant and excit­ing prac­tice, which is lay­ered and nuanced and, in some cas­es, has deep con­cep­tu­al foundations.

There are some old favourites in this Bien­ni­al, but they are push­ing their work in new direc­tions, which is the great gift of the exhi­bi­tion. Ryan has giv­en us a great mix from ear­ly to late career artists, and a geo­graph­ic spread too, which is fab­u­lous for a viewer.

The resound­ing walk-away from the Infi­nite Draw­ing Bien­ni­al is the artist’s hand in these works – both its pres­ence or absence – and how the hand, body and mine become one in the deliv­ery of these works. It is an excel­lent – and thought-pro­vok­ing – exhi­bi­tion.

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