Concerns with the representation of the beloved

2021, charcoal on canvas, 67 x 51 cm

Exhibited Dobel Drawing Prize and tour. A drawing of my 14 year old teenage son - who is trying to figure out his place in the world and how to decipher meaning. He is looking at a taxidermy mount of a rabbit - an object I use with students when I teach drawing. It is a fascinating object - beautiful yet abject. Full of personality yet no longer living. Sensuous and weird and kinda creepy. The lines of perspective projection on raw canvas reflect the challenge and frustration of how meaning is produced through languages of representation. I’m asking the question of how representation continues to change as time passes, through adolescence, through creative endeavours, and how it changes through the transition from living to something else.