Sydney Exhibition

Jillian Gardner
Opens Wednesday 25 May 2022, 6 – 8pm
Runs 26 May – 5 June

We’re so happy to have Jillian Gardner exhibit her solo exhibition The Curve of Forgetting at Scratch in 2022. We’ve had to postpone this show twice due to Covid and now finally this series of works on paper, inspired by a visit to the NSW south coast during the devastating Australian bushfires in the summer of 2020, are finally available to view.

The charcoal used in many of these drawings was collected on a beach on the south coast of NSW during the 2019/2020 bushfire crisis. The Farm beach in Shellharbour was an isolated pocket that missed the fires. As I walked along this beach at the end of 2019, I made my way through knee high piles of ash that had been brought in with the tide from fires in the area. I collected piles of this burnt ash and charcoal with the intention of drawing with this. The faces drawn with this charcoal are a testimony to the impact of climate change, drawing with this charcoal was an incredibly moving and emotional experience for me.

All works are for sale and 10% of all sales will be donated to UNICEF’s Ukraine Emergency Appeal.

Artist Statement

Memory, what is forgotten, what is remembered? At times memories are buried, hidden under the distance that comes with the passage of time.  I am intrigued by the idea that memories can be influenced and shaped by images and the role that repetition plays in this. This is particularly true in relation to the amount of news we are exposed to. Social media and 24-hour rolling news cycles have added intensity to this exposure.

My drawings in this exhibition are a response to working in a newsroom; and are a meditation of mark-making, my own testimony on what happens throughout a daily news-cycle, and an opportunity for me to process and reflect. The fluidity of ink references the passing of time and the faces, an imprint of a memory.

The 2020 election coverage of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the ongoing discourse surrounding race relations and the Black Lives Matter movement and, of course, COVID-19 are all examples of large events that have featured in our lives throughout the past couple of years. The ongoing narrative and repeated images around these stories have created intensity in news storytelling and, as a result, anxiety within some news viewers.

Perhaps, in relation to news media, a dose of amnesia is a good tonic for us all to take, a break from the relentless cycle, and a time to engage with creativity. Mark-making, the scratch of charcoal, and the fluidity of ink on paper are the marks of myself and my testimony as an artist.