Engaged - A Collection of Public Toilet Images and Words
A series of large scale charcoal drawings of toilets and hand basins, created between 2001-2011 and shown at Sawtooth ARI in it's inaugral year. There are also wax crayon rubbings of toilet door signs and the notices and surfaces. These were not originally intended for show, which is why they weren't exhibited until 10 years later.
These works initially began as morning drawing practice to warm up at the start of each working day in the studio, (in 2001-02), at St Kilda Bowling Club. The disused toilet block was attached to my studio. From that point, the subject grew, I have drawn at various locations, including the residency at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in 2011, (the shower block and changeroom in Fenton's Stables), and the bluestone toilet block that once stood at the city end of Acland St, St Kilda.
In these charcoal works I employ a process involving keen observation and concentration of the subject to create a sense of emersion, pressurised and exaggerated space between objects, generating a sense of deep space and hyper reality. A process based on the Perceptual Drawing technique studied during a two week drawing marathon with Graham Nixon, the founding Dean of the New York Studio School.