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Words and Images by Stephen Palmer

Daily until Sunday 13 April

Image credit: Open Lids (2024) by Stephen Palmer. Graphite on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

A series of drawings which explore the interplay between language and perception. Created during the lockdowns of 2020-21, they take inspiration from walks around the northern suburbs of Melbourne. The works don’t depict an exact place but rather aim to enact a drift through geography and memory.

The serial form of the work developed upon the artists’ interest in the structural processes of composition, taking its cues partly from the theatrical works of Samuel Beckett, from whom Palmer also derived the title. He is interested in the way in which “our experience of time and place is conditioned in relation to the conventions of a narrative sequence.” In reducing or isolating elements of representation Palmer wants to foreground their instability or “play.” Likewise, the drawings speak to the way in which perception is fragmentary and written through psychological processes of projection and association.

Where

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Fitzroy Library
128 Moor Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065