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Chris Palmer brings together drawings from two periods that dwell on remnants. The works are a reflection on what is left behind when external forces – whether the makings of nature or humans – prevail. In the works, Palmer explores places seen on his travels around rural Victoria as well as the spaces that he calls home.

The first series of drawings are from the past.  The ruins of a country hotel, a dilapidated building on the main street of a rural town, and a storm-damaged pier stretching out from a sand-bagged beach. Drawn in different years some ten years ago, these charcoal images are observations on nature’s slow interventions over time. In them, we see abandoned structures breaking down and returning to the wild.

The recent drawings are meditations on the present. In one, a stand of trees still remains after logging in a state park.  In the two smaller drawings, Palmer’s relocation during the pandemic sees him focussed on his immediate surrounds.  From the wonderland of an ocean rockpool where he used to swim, to the sprawling garden of the one-time farmhouse which would be his lockdown retreat, Palmer contemplates joys within that have been disrupted by chaos without.

It is significant that it is with remnants not ruins that Palmer builds the stories that his drawings tell.  ‘Making art has’, Palmer explains, ‘always sustained me. It is a way for me to record what I see and experience. How I feel about what is going on around me. Ultimately, drawing helps me to make sense of a complex world.’