Tree Work Aotearoa
Frottage is a drawing practice that converts haptic experience into a visual encounter.
These works present intra-actions with different native trees found throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. Surfaces, apparent to the hand but not readily to the eye, are particular to each kind of tree and each individual tree . These drawings co-enact rather than illustrate the surface, enabling a subconscious kind of seeing to occur, and a slow method of engaging with ecology to emerge.
In 2016, I made the Okuti Valley Series #1-9, a group of drawings using conte, graphite and pastel on Mulberry paper (48x68cm). In 2017-18 I worked with much thinner Gampi paper (10gsm) to make Tree Work Aotearoa presented here as digital photographs. In 2021, I have begun to attach drawings onto wooden panels to produce a series of drawing-paintings as a way to reflect more personally with the marks and forms created in the frottage process.
