Eileen Abood writes about Swirl by Jennifer Andrews

Subject: Jennifer Andrews Swirl (2011)
By: Eileen Abood

Copyright Eileen Abood 2011

   Poetic in its treatment of the moment captured, Jennifer Andrews’ Swirl (2011) is emboldened with the potential energy of something on the verge of slipping away, of moving on. Her passion for drawing and interest in the environment is evident within the layering of organic marks and forms. Swirl is also part of a series of drawings and research in which Andrews is pushing the boundaries of drawing as a mark making technique and exploring its relationship to mimesis and mimetic impulse. Inherent in this is a reflection upon the impulse to copy what we see and the role of the contemporary artist in interpreting an already existing truth about the nature of experience as a form of expression. 
This body of work was inspired by a field trip to the Terania creek Protestor Falls in northern New South Wales.In Andrews’ exploration of the mimetic process she documented her experience through sketches and photographs. The resulting series of drawings from that research is about a balance of control, and letting go of control. Through the use of the photographs as a reference tool Andrews was able to maintain the compositional integrity of her subject. In drawing upon her memory and subconscious she revisited her connection to the environment in the captured moment. Distilling these two elements of the photograph and remembered experience through drawing is essential to Andrews practice because it allows her to evoke a sense of connection to surface which cannot be replaced by technological mediums.

   Her process involves forming, erasing and reforming line as she builds the composition with a complexity that reflects the interconnectedness of the captured moment. She uses charcoal, ink, pit crayon, graphite and basically any black medium on large sheets of archers rag paper, working up the composition in layers, moving through a method of working, washing back and re working. Through a monochromatic pallet an emphasis is placed on the layers and movement of the marks.  She tries to get the paper to breathe perceptually. The accumulative process becomes a mimetic act of the layering of the rainforest in its cyclic functions, of growth and decay. This reflection upon the natural world is further emphasised by the fact that the subject matter of the drawings, the rainforest creek of Protester Falls, owes its current existence to one of Australia’s most fiercely fought environmental battles.

   The Terania Creek blockade was a spontaneous gathering of protestors in 1979, from the Channon local market, after they discovered that loggers were arriving to cut down the Terania Creek rainforest.  The protest ran for six weeks and was hailed as the world's first large, on sight, direct action against rainforest logging (Hutchens 2003) resulting in the formation of the Nightcap National Park which was later world heritage listed in 1989.  It is a strategy which has been successfully repeated around the globe, resulting in the conservation and protection of many, many thousands of hectares of rainforest, old growth forest and wilderness (Pugh & Webb 1999).
In her work Andrews wants the viewer to experience something of the original nature of the moment through a perceptual connectivity. In using Protester Falls as her subject matter she is evoking a connection to a place which sparked a movement of environmental action. In conveying the essence of that place, she creates a powerful statement in this current crisis of global climate change. That there is value in our natural resources beyond commercial gain is more relevant now than ever. In Swirl the moment captured is filled with the momentum of something about to change and what that next moment will be heavily relies on the actions of society and individuals in the now.   

References
Hutchens, B 2003, Episode 8: John Seed transcript, Gorge Negus Tonight: GNT People, viewed 6 April 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_people/Transcripts/s934008.htm>.
Pugh, D & Webb, L 1999, ‘Terania Forest Blockade- 20th Anniversary Tributes’, Rainforest Information Center, viewed 6 April 2011, <http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/terania_forest_blockade.htm>.