Resilient drawings, 2023. Series of 18 drawings using handmade fig charcoal.
I focussed on the fig tree, which has been a source of inspiration for works previously including ‘Calvari’ and ‘Inside the Forest’, using plaster cast leaves within sculptural installations. All narrative is light and shade, black and white, so I look at what is bleak, dark and melancholy, hopeless and move through it to the light. Monochrome drawings of dead fig leaves become alive again within the art object. The futile act of studying fallen fig leaves for hours on end knowing their fate within a performance of ruin and destruction only reinforces the sadness I feel at the fruitless fig tree.