Blake Gibson — Australia Drawings

Alright, guess it's time for me to step to the plate. My artistic exploration in Australia involved solitary walks into the bush, wilderness, woods...whatever you want to call it. I had been working on small-scale pen and ink drawings based on the natural world prior to my leaving for Australia. I did not know how or if this process would find a place in my work in Australia. But I brought a small pad of paper and pens with me, and most of the time these were the only art materials I carried on my walks.

The works are diminutive and minimal — not Minimalist, that's something different. But they are minimal to me. I was interested in objects or views that had an intriguing appearance, but which also would be difficult to draw convincingly without also including information about their context. So, I drew them by themselves, without much information at all about the area around them. They are de-contextualized (which I sometimes accomplished by doing stuff to the drawings later). Fundamentally, these works came from thoughts about my disconnection from the wilderness and my being with that disconnection alone in the wilderness and quiet for extended amounts of time.

Below are images of some of these 9"x11 1/2" drawings. I've included a couple of details in the mix as well....