2021 Dobell Drawing Prize
Global mobility, particularly in relation to leisure travel, has been the focus of my practice for several years. Cruise ships, caravans and airplanes have, for me, been signifiers of a mobile world. This work was made in Utah in late 2019, a few months before international travel was halted by a pandemic – when aircraft were still flying. This plane, a 1950s Beechcraft 18 ‘Expeditor’, had long been grounded after being retired from service 35 years earlier. I was drawn to its stout frame and silvery studded surface, and to its past role in aerial cartographic missions. I liked that it had helped map the world and that, in turn, I was mapping, at 1:1 scale, its worn surface through a tactile process of frottage. In this work the marks of the graphite, my hand gestures, the bruising from gusts of wind and smudges of sweat all commingle to capture a small segment of a permanently stationary aircraft.
Image courtesy of the National Art School
Photograph by Peter Morgan