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Jenny Bell 's charcoal and Pastel drawings of the country and its inhabitants convey a sense of nostalgic yet disenchanted familiarity with the subject. Dominated by themes of isolation and loneliness, the work also deals with the notion of tradition and the inherent restrictions placed upon the individual through family and social pressures, using the rural example as an epitome of the wider social situation. This new body of work continues these preoccupations which were prevalent in last year's exhibitions at the Blaxland Gallery and First Draft.
Displayed as an installation at the Mori Gallery, the drawings are grouped according to subject matter and each series is hung in a neatly measured grid pattern which, in its careful arrangement, reflects the highly introspective nature of the work. The artist's method is to examine her subject from a number of different angles and distances, so that, as a group, the drawings appear repetitive to the point of obsession. Nine drawings of a fireplace, for example, each with a varying amount of detail, demonstrate the process of elimination that is necessary in order to reveal the essential nature of the subject. The gradual shredding of cluttered details - chair, door, grate – represents the process of distancing oneself and substituting a complacent acceptance with a more objective perception of a situation swathed in tradition and familiarity.
A series of twenty "Fence" drawings, stark black lines across a sheet of white paper, challenge the traditional Arcadian view of farming as an harmonious and natural interchange between man and nature. The emphasis here is on ownership and territory; the fences cut through and divide the barren landscape, contradicting the myth in Australian painting (Drysdale