My colleagues and I initially produced works to be hung in the windows of the Lewers House Gallery, which were to be site specific and reference Gerald and Margo Lewers, the history of the gallery and its location, Australian Modernism and Abstraction in general. The part of the gallery I like is the garden, so that's what I responded to. I think what I like most about the garden is that it's a bit of an eclectic mix of interesting plants which is probably similar to what I'd do with it if it was mine, heritage listed weeds inclusive, though the section planted with cacti including various Agave and a thriving Pitaya growing atop a whitewashed brick wall makes me think of Southern California.
I took a couple hundred photos around the garden, then spent an hour or two thinning them down to eighty I might like to use as reference, the following morning I had a strong enough sense of what I wanted to do and the specimens I wanted to depict I didn't end up referring to the photos at all.
Using a single Siberian weasel hair brush and black India ink on a 1.4x.7m sheet of xuen paper, I got to work.
Here is the end result.
It depicts my favourite part of the garden, a pond with lilies and Echinodorus, wisteria, which wasn't in flower at the time, bamboo, iris which weren't in flower, willow, and chrysanthemum, also not in flower, and some random grass to fill in the composition.
Here it is in situ, where it was displayed for the six days.
The works displayed in the windows for that brief period were only a precursor to our followup photography exhibition.
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