Extraordinary drawings from place, memory and imagination
The Art Gallery of New South Wales presents Real Worlds, the fourth Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, from 24 October 2020 – 7 February 2021.
Supported by the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, this exhibition presents new work by eight contemporary Australian artists who create extraordinary new worlds in drawings of great complexity and invention.
Real Worlds features drawings by Martin Bell, Matt Coyle, Nathan Hawkes, Danie Mellor, Peter Mungkuri, Becc Ország, Jack Stahel and Helen Wright.
Exhibition curator and Art Gallery of NSW curator of Australian art Anne Ryan said the exhibited works evoke distinctive ways of seeing and making sense of the world.
“Real Worlds brings together the work of eight artists who seek to interpret and comprehend the world through subjective reinvention via drawing. For some, it is grounded in a deep connection to place or Country. For others, it is a reinvention that springs forth from imagination and the subconscious, inflected by subjective experience and rich with narrative suggestion,” said Ryan.
“The immediacy and intimacy of drawing is particularly attuned to the urgency of our times, and the work of each of these artists reflects the human capacity to imagine something better, or different.
“The real world can be reckoned with, be re-seen, be understood anew, as we face its mercurial challenges. While conceived before our wild year of 2020, and created both before and during it, the drawings of Real Worlds speak with urgency and directness to where we are now.”
Each Biennial has a different curatorial concept and seeks to showcase the vitality and breadth of drawing in contemporary Australian art. Some of the exhibited works from each Biennial are acquired for the Gallery’s permanent collection.
Following the Art Gallery of NSW exhibition, Real Worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020 will tour regionally to two NSW venues, Lismore Regional Gallery (27 February – 25 April 2021) and the Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, yapang (8 May – 18 July 2021).