“While each drawing began with the idea of a mirage, in many ways the works extend and overreach that project; they can and should be considered on their own terms. Watching drifting clouds of particulate matter spiralling above the sea or contemplating the dust on the screen of a laptop proposed different stories and threads that come together and interact, even as each drawing on its own feels singular. Other works are embedded in the lived realities of the interplay between a life and an art project; a drawing of a cat in the studio, a re-working of a rough sketch of a statue seen in Rome years ago telling of a Greek myth, a drawing of the sea from memory, a re-imagined episode from Star Trek about a shape-shifting cloud. Each work attempts to make the familiar unfamiliar — to de-familiarise things so as to register their strange particularity. The aim was to consider drawing as a refractive process to re-orientate our gaze and encourage different thought positions that involve closeness or responsiveness, proposing, for example, that a cloud might return our gaze or that the sea might be seen as sentient.”
Penny McCarthy
Cloud falls in love with Mortal
Penny McCarthy was presented with the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition in 2019. She proposed an exhibition with its starting point based on popular press reports of the phenomenon of a Fata Morgana in the sky above the sea off Hastings Beach. The resultant exhibition Cloud falls in love with mortal showed at Hastings Contemporary 8 October 2022 - 12 March 2023.
The artist wrote of the sequence of her works:
“Pencil drawing is used with an exacting and concentrated slowness that is a kind of reverie or extended contemplation. The work was made during the pandemic when navigating lockdowns instead of the originally planned visits to Hastings opened a speculative and metaphorical exploration of myths and narratives associated with the sea and sky. The suite of drawings is very much a reflection of an interior world conjured out of paper, clouds, water, dust and light. There is a material frugality to the project that comes, at least in part, from being made over this turbulent time.”
At the time, Hastings Contemporary Director Liz Gilmore commented
“Two of our gallery rooms will be transformed by this exquisitely beautiful immersive exhibition by artist Penny McCarthy. The show, with an accompanying film and practical resources, is an inspiring and special celebration of the possibilities of drawing. Penny’s ability to take our visitors into an imaginative space between dreams and reality can be enjoyed by both adults and children.”“
Fata Morgana 2
My battery is running low and it’s getting dark
