Slouching Towards Bethlehem: An Exhibition of Preparatory and Informal Drawings
Curated by Geoff Lowe

Contemporary Stories of the pre-Renaissance tell us that drawings were kept in chests for artists either to admire or to use as a guide/tool/model for paintings. Soon after this the print created a public market for graphic work.

In Australia, the print has been important since the initial publishing of topographical, plant and animal studies. A print often lends an authenticity to information that a drawing, where there is only one, may not have. The flawless reproduction has a transcendant authority. Drawings that have been admired here have often copied the quality of prints or reproductions or, as signature drawings referred to major paintings. Renowned drawings are usually irreproachably complete in these ways.

Drawing can, and at its best does show the hand and does not disguise it. Shows intent without purifying it. Drawing can show where things begin and end, where one genre falls into another and, most importantly, how fragile meaning and representation can be. 

Geoff Lowe, 1986