Weena's Bad Shuttle; Acedia No 2

Abstract

Background Since 2009, I have worked on a series of interconnected research projects and publications that interrogate the structures and theatres of life drawing. In 2018, I began an exploration of puppetry related to this field of research. Puppets (called ‘lay figures’) have been fixtures in artists’ studios for centuries although they have been regarded as tokens of outmoded studio practices. My research deploys puppets and questions their value as vehicles for insight into the estrangements and occultish transactions that occur when artists, models and performers intersect in the studio. I have exhibited my puppet research in Australia, the US, and Japan, presented a keynote at a major Drawing symposium (JADA), published (VIS) and been invited to perform a puppet intervention at QAGOMA’s exhibition of Picasso’s Vollard Suite.

Contribution Weena’s Bad Shuttle/Acedia No 2 is a collection of nine folios in custom box and a large single-page drawing mounted on felt. The drawings are innovative in material and process. The drawings are created by puppets. The puppets are parasitical, provoking notions of the prosthetic impulse and surrogacy. The methods of drawing — stabbing, pulling, twisting rods attached to the puppet’s hands — magnify the eccentric strategy in this work. The drawings are executed on prepared and stained paper incorporating technical and historical methods of drawing including trace monotype, scumbling and heightening. The drawings foreground studio issues of agency, autonomy, control, dexterity, identity and surveillance.

Significance Weena’s Bad Shuttle/ Acedia No 2 was curated (Stafford. Hollier) into the Pivot exhibition at Onespace Gallery in Brisbane where it was acquired by the State Library of Queensland as part of its permanent collection. It is unusual for SLQ to acquire single-page large drawings such as Acedia No 2. The acquisition marks a significant contribution to the SLQ’s drawing collection.