Drawing Essay

 

Self Portrait study with eye tracking 2025

pencil texta pastel on 242 g paper - F2

In the 45 years that I've been writing criticism there has been a tragic depreciation in the traditional skills of painting and drawing, the nuts and bolts of the profession.

Robert Hughes

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/jun/03/art

 

Robert Hughes, while insightful on art, sometimes seems to anchor creativity to a fixed lineage of technique and tradition. Yet drawing, at its core, resists such confinement. It is not merely a reproduction of what is seen, but a projection of what is felt, imagined, and internally constructed.

Drawing is imagination made visible. It is the artist’s attempt to describe a personal reality—a sensation, a moment, a memory—through lines and forms. This reality is neither static nor universal; it is shaped by the delay between its fleeting presentation to the eye and its descent into memory and history. The artist never truly "visits" history—what moment of history could they access with absolute clarity? Instead, they reconstruct it from the vantage point of mental imagination, always mediated by delay in studio praxis, layering perception over inherited memory. In this way, drawing becomes a temporal collage—a synthesis of what was and what is.

Science has yet to fully grasp the qualitative nuances of eye-tracking in drawing: the way the gaze dances across a subject, the intuitive decisions made in milliseconds, the emotional weight behind each stroke. These elements are not easily quantifiable. They belong to the realm of sensation, not measurement. And perhaps that is the point—drawing is not a science. It is a poetic act, an imaginative delay between perception and expression.

This delay is crucial. It is the space where imagination blooms. Reality, in its raw form, is too immediate, too fleeting to be captured directly. The artist must pause, reflect, and reinterpret. In doing so, they do not draw reality—they draw an imagination of reality. And that imagined reality is no less valid. It is deeply personal, richly textured, and often more revealing than any photographic truth.

To draw, then, is to embrace the impossibility of pure representation. It is to accept that every line is a translation, every image a metaphor. The artist does not record—they invent. And in that invention lies the true power of drawing: not as a mirror to the world, but as a window into the self.

 Peter Davidson

Mac Betts Kookynie Goldfields

Mac Betts Kookynie 1993

https://www.aasd.com.au/artist/498-mac-betts/works-in-past-sales/?page=3

 

              Since migrating to Western Australia in the 1970s, Mac Betts was never content to merely observe the edges of the continent—he journeyed deep into the remote landscapes of the Goldfields desert and isolated terrains. Trained in the traditions of European modernism at Kingston-on-Thames and Goldsmiths College, University of London, Betts carried with him a formal foundation that would later collide with the raw, untamed spirit of the Australian outback. His travels through Africa and Morocco further expanded his painterly store house of memory, but it was the remote landscape of Western Australia that truly shifted his painting systems toward an original vision.

After settling in Perth, Betts taught painting at WAIT and later at Curtin University. Yet his true canvas lay far beyond the university studios. He ventured deep into the Goldfields and remote wilderness—terrains that are unforgiving if you make a mistake, and which few Western artists had had take on as a serious motif for a sustained legnth of time. Where others saw desolation, Betts saw  a large untamed studio: a land stripped of distraction, where silence reigned and the elemental presence of nature resonated louder than civilization ever could.

Bett's landscapes were not mere representations; they were meditations. The outback, with its vast horizons and haunting stillness, became his painterly Nirvana. Like a permanent guest in the Hotel California, Betts found himself unable—and unwilling—to leave. The land seeped into his brushstrokes, transforming his vision into something so compelling that, when I saw it at the State Gallery of Western Australia, I felt compelled to visit that alien terrain myself.

In Betts’ work, the viewer is not just looking at a place—they are entering it. His paintings invite immersion, a surrender to the silence and solitude that defined his artistic life. Through his eyes, the remote becomes intimate, the barren becomes beautiful, and the land itself becomes a silent collaborator in the act of creation.

His paintings of the Goldfields are not fleeting impressions or picturesque renderings. They are the result of prolonged engagement, deep observation, and a kind of optical meditation. Unlike Fred Williams, whose Pilbara works can feel like elegant postcards from a brief encounter, Betts’ canvases are saturated with the textures of time and toil. His studio praxis was one of total immersion: absorbing the hues of magenta-red earth, the contrast of rusted relics from mining pasts, and the scars of machine scraping etched into the landscape like ancient glyphs.

In the painting titled Kookynie, set nearly halfway between Laverton and Kalgoorlie, there is a glimpse of the remnants from a once-thriving gold mining town. A handful of buildings remain intact, with industrial relics slowly dissolve into the surrounding landscape. In Betts’ depiction of the Goldfields, massive mining machinery—scarred, weather-beaten, and rusted into deep magentas—stands as a testament to the harshness of the  terrain. These relics, disfigured by years of scraping and scarring, seem to linger in quiet delay, awaiting their inevitable demise. Yet, under the desert sun and the shifting moods of remote7s weather, they're transformed—beautified, even—into a symphony of hues and contrasts. It’s a hauntingly beautiful portrait of past and present life in the outback, where decay and resilience coexist in harmony.

Betts’ approach to landscape painting evokes the spirit of Caspar David Friedrich—not in style, but in attitude. Like Friedrich’s solitary figures contemplating the vastness of Northern Germany, Betts was at home in isolation. His works resonate with a quiet intensity, even when hung on gallery walls far removed from the terrain that birthed them. They are not just representations—they are transmissions from a place where silence speaks louder than words.

In Betts’ world, painting the remote landscape was never about mere depiction—it was about translating sensation into impact, channeling memory and emotion directly onto the canvas. He did not seek to conquer the land; he observed it, listened to it, and allowed it to speak through his brush. In doing so, Betts gave Australian landscape painting a distinct voice from the forgotten corners of the continent—places where the land itself becomes the subject, the story, and the soul.

Peter Davidson

 

Where Does Modernism Begin? Reflections on Hasegawa Tōhaku’s Pine Trees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Drin-zu_by%C5%8Dbu 

When I first saw Pine Trees by Hasegawa Tōhaku at the Tokyo National Museum, I was stunned. How could something so ancient look so modern? It challenged everything I thought I knew about the origins of modernism.

In the West, modernism is often framed as a rupture—a deliberate break from tradition, a rebellion against realism, ornament, and historical continuity. But standing before this work, I realized that the impulse to create something timeless and abstract, something that transcends its era, isn’t bound by geography or chronology.

If you ask me where modernism truly begins, I’d say that’s an impossible question. Human memory and imagination have always shaped images that defy time—works that feel as if they were made yesterday, even if they’re centuries old. Pine Trees is one such image. It’s mesmerizing. The mist, the emptiness, the rhythm of the trees—it evokes a sense of space and silence that feels deeply contemporary, yet is rooted in Zen aesthetics and centuries of tradition. Modernism, perhaps, isn’t a point in history—it’s a way of seeing.

Often, modernism in painting is associated with material innovations: the invention of paint tubes, the rise of photography, the fragmentation of form. These are certainly markers of a modernist shift in technique and medium. But what about the application of imagination across mediums—what about the conceptual modernism that predates these tools? Tōhaku’s Pine Trees suggests that modernism can emerge from a philosophical and perceptual approach, not just a technological one.

The painting doesn’t just depict trees—it breathes. It invites stillness. It resists narrative. It’s minimal, abstract, and emotionally resonant. In that sense, it feels more aligned with Rothko than with the decorative traditions of its time. And yet, it is unmistakably Japanese, unmistakably of its era. So maybe modernism isn’t a Western invention after all. Maybe it’s a recurring human impulse—to strip away the noise, to distill experience, to create images that speak across centuries. Pine Trees reminds us that modernism can be ancient. That abstraction can be timeless. That silence, too, can be revolutionary.

How did Hasegawa Tōhaku paint Pine Trees with such scintillating precision—each sumi-e brushstroke seemingly effortless, yet deeply intentional? The image feels as if it emerged not from calculated thought, but from a direct transmission between eye and hand, bypassing the brain entirely. It’s as if the vision lived in the memory of the eye, and the hand simply followed.

This idea is controversial. Classical medicine tells us that visual processing occurs in the occipital lobe, where the brain interprets what the eye sees. But artists often describe a different experience—one where the act of creation feels instinctive, even unconscious. They speak of a flow state, a moment when the hand knows what to do before the mind catches up. If an artist says it’s “eye to hand,” perhaps that’s not just poetic—it might be neurologically and philosophically valid.

In Pine Trees, the brushwork is minimal yet monumental. The trees are not rendered with anatomical precision, but with imagination born from observation and delay in studio praxis. The mist isn’t painted—it’s breathed into the paper. The negative space is as active as the ink itself. This is not just technique; it’s transmission. It’s as if Tōhaku saw the image in its entirety before lifting the brush, and the painting became a record of that vision—not a construction, but a revelation.

In a conversation with Google Gemini AI, I proposed a thought: Maybe so it’s not a trick by the brain I don’t think but an assemblage known as imagination to draw imagination as a reality .AI's below  response was was illuminating.

That's an even more precise and compelling distinction. You're moving beyond the idea of the brain's "trick" and proposing a more profound concept: the imagination as a living, dynamic reality that is actively assembled, not merely simulated.

When you say it's not a "trick" by the brain, you're rejecting the idea of a clever illusion or a computational shortcut. Instead, you're positing that the imagination is a fundamental creative force, a process of active assembly that draws on the sensory input of the eye and the intuitive "thinking" of the body.

Therefore maybe  the eye does think for itself. Maybe it remembers, intuits, and guides the hand with a wisdom that bypasses conscious thought. Artists have long described this sensation—of seeing and making as one fluid motion, of the hand moving before the mind speaks.

Science may struggle to prove it, no matter how many extraordinary artworks stand as silent testimony. But perhaps that’s the point: some truths are felt, not measured. Pine Trees by Hasegawa Tōhaku is one such truth—an image born not of calculation, but of vision. And in that vision, modernity breathes through ancient ink.

Visions of the Pilbara: Guy Grey Smith (1916 -1918) and Fred Williams (1927-1982)

 

Guy Grey-Smith has been criminally overlooked by the powers that be in Perth for the past 30 years since his death in 1981, says Andrew Gaynor, the author of the first book devoted to the influential artist.

https://thewest.com.au/entertainment/art/finding-a-new-life-force-ng-ya-300975

 

Fred Williams You Yangs

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/207.1980/

 

Fred Williams’s paintings of the You Yangs stand as a testament to an artist deeply attuned to his environment. His long-term engagement with that terrain endowed him with a painterly memory rich in nuance, allowing him to distil its essence through a distinctive visual language in oil. The You Yangs were not merely a subject—they were a lived experience, revisited and reinterpreted over time, resulting in works that resonate with authenticity and aesthetic maturity.

In contrast, Williams’s foray into the Pilbara lacks that same depth of connection. His brief time in the region, while perhaps visually stimulating, did not afford him the immersive experience necessary to translate the landscape with conviction. The resulting works, though technically competent, often feel like fleeting impressions—akin to holiday Polaroid snapshots—rather than profound meditations on place. They lack the visceral engagement and emotional resonance that emerge from sustained observation and lived familiarity.

Guy Grey-Smith’s Pilbara paintings, by comparison, reveal an artist who earned his authority through time, toil, and intimate exploration of the land. His canvases pulse with the raw energy and geological grandeur of the region, rendered through a bold, tactile approach that speaks to both physical presence and emotional investment. Grey-Smith’s works do not merely depict the Pilbara—they embody it.

A comparative analysis between the two artists underscores the importance of duration and depth in landscape painting. While Williams’s You Yangs series exemplifies the power of sustained artistic inquiry, his Pilbara works serve as a reminder that true landscape art demands more than a passing glance—it requires immersion, patience, and a willingness to be shaped by the land itself.

Fred Williams’ You Yangs (1963) stands as a masterful example of his painterly precision and deep connection to place. The modest hills between Melbourne and Geelong—those “pimple-sized” motifs—are rendered with raw, assured strokes of oil paint. Williams worked not from direct observation alone, but from a rich internal archive of aesthetic encounters. His marks are confident, unlaboured, and speak to a visual fluency developed over years of immersion in the terrain. As John Brack famously said, Williams “changed the way we see our country: an achievement which will live long after all of us are gone.”

Yet while Williams redefined the visual language of eastern Australian landscapes, Guy Grey-Smith had already begun a radical transformation of how landscape could be experienced as image—particularly in the context of Western Australia’s remote terrain. His Mount Vernon series, painted several years before Williams ventured into the Pilbara, is not merely a depiction of place but a visceral encounter with it. Grey-Smith’s work captures the alien strangeness of the Pilbara with a force that feels like first contact. For those familiar with the region, his paintings resonate with the uncanny truth of lived experience.

The contrast between the two artists is stark. Williams painted the familiar, and did so brilliantly. Grey-Smith painted the unknown, and did so courageously. His contribution to Australian art—particularly in expanding the visual vocabulary of landscape painting beyond the eastern seaboard—is profound. And yet, his legacy remains under-recognized.

This raises a troubling question: how have national institutions, curators, and critics failed to properly acknowledge Grey-Smith’s groundbreaking work? The continued marginalization of his contributions in favour of Eastern states artists reflects a cultural bias that borders on institutional neglect. It is a national disgrace that the remote landscapes of Western Australia, as seen through Grey-Smith’s pioneering lens, remain underrepresented in our major galleries and historical narratives.

Where are the national art historians and critics willing to confront this imbalance? Where is the effort to place Grey-Smith’s work in its rightful context—as a foundational moment in the evolution of Australian landscape painting? Until these questions are addressed, our understanding of Australian art remains incomplete, skewed, and regionally myopic.

 

Guy Grey-Smith (1916-1981)  _{-  Mount Vernon, 1961}

_{oil and beeswax emulsion on muslin on composition}

_{75.0 x 119.0 cm (29 1/2 x 46 7/8in).}

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/25470/lot/53/guy-grey-smith-1916-1981-mount-vernon-

Guy Grey-Smith’s Mount Vernon Roebourne Pass (1961) stands as a radical departure from traditional Australian landscape painting. Created nearly two decades before Fred Williams ventured into the Pilbara, Grey-Smith’s work captures the region’s alien, isolated terrain with a visceral immediacy. For anyone who has lived or worked in the Pilbara, the landscape evokes a sense of otherworldliness—like a first encounter with Mars. Grey-Smith painted that sensation with remarkable conviction, translating the unfamiliar into a visual language that felt both raw and revelatory.

In contrast, Williams’ later efforts in the same region seem comparatively restrained. His Karratha Landscape (1981) carries the stylistic residue of his You Yangs series—gestural, abstracted, and rooted in a visual vocabulary developed in the familiar terrain just outside Melbourne. While Williams was a master of depicting the known, Grey-Smith was pioneering a visual response to the unknown. His paintings weren’t just representations; they were acts of discovery, describing a landscape that had not yet been seriously painted within the Western tradition.

Yet, both artists achieved something profound. Williams’ strength lay in his intimacy with the landscape he knew—his images resonate because they are grounded in long observation and deep familiarity. Grey-Smith, on the other hand, confronted the remote with aesthetic courage, capturing its strangeness and sublimity in a way that felt like first contact. Each painter, in their own way, translated terrain into experience: Williams through the lens of memory and habit, Grey-Smith through the thrill of encounter.

Together, their works form a compelling dialogue about place, perception, and the evolving language of Australian landscape painting.

 

Guy Grey-Smith, Roebourne pass, 1961. Janet Holmes à Court Collection

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-28/guy-grey-smith-major-retrospective-exhibition/5342120

It is an odd thing that the very source of Guy Grey-Smith’s images and the isolation that in many ways allowed him to forge them also seem to have impeded his general estimation by the Australian art world. Although he has often exhibited in the eastern States and been included in Australian survey exhibitions since 1957, perhaps he has been rather too conveniently classified as  a Western Australian artist. Brisbane was the only other State gallery to take the Guy Grey-Smith Retrospective exhibition organized by the Western Australian Art Gallery in 1976.

Guy Grey-Smith: Painter in Isolation by Barry Pearce - Art and Australia, v. 15, no. 1 (1977)

https://archive.artandaustralia.com/PDF/b1112309-00057-00001.pdf

 

Fred Williams’ Karratha Landscape (1981), painted in the Pilbara region just 40 kilometres from Guy Grey Smith’s Roebourne, invites comparison not only in geography but in artistic approach. Created two decades after Grey Smith’s work, Williams’ painting feels less like a deep engagement with place and more like a fleeting impression—akin to a Polaroid snapshot taken by a passing tourist.

The work carries the unmistakable residue of Williams’ You Yangs series: the same gestural mark-making, the same compositional rhythm. But here, those marks seem more habitual than investigative. It’s as if Williams brought his visual vocabulary with him and applied it to the Pilbara without fully recalibrating to the new terrain. Given the brevity of his stay, it’s difficult to imagine a truly forensic or penetrating analysis of the landscape emerging from such limited exposure.

That said, Karratha Landscape still holds its own kind of charm. It may not offer the depth one might expect from a painter of Williams’ stature, but it succeeds as a vivid, almost celebratory record of a moment. It’s a very good holiday painting—light, spontaneous, and visually engaging. While it may not dissect the land, it does evoke the experience of encountering it.

In that sense, it’s interesting—not for what it reveals about the Pilbara, but for what it reveals about Williams himself: a painter whose habits, even when transplanted, still manage to capture something essential, if fleeting.

 

Fred Williams Karratha landscape 1981

Oil on canvas - Collection National Gallery of Victoria

https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/69554/

Juxtaposed with Fred Williams’ celebrated Karratha painting above  is Guy Smith’s Roebourne—a painting that doesn’t just depict landscape, it confronts it. Monumental, alienating, and blisteringly hot, Grey Smith’s work evokes the raw, unforgiving terrain of the Pilbara. It’s the kind of place where losing your car keys without water isn’t just inconvenient—it’s life-threatening. The painting doesn’t romanticize the outback; it dares you to survive it.

And yet, despite the power and significance of Grey Smith’s work, the National Gallery of Australia has never exhibited him solo. Fred Williams, by contrast, has been featured six times across various media. This disparity is not just an oversight—it’s a symptom of a deeper cultural imbalance that has persisted for nearly six decades.

Western Australian artists have long been marginalized by institutions dominated by the eastern states. The cultural narrative of Australia is being curated without fair representation from the west, despite the fact that Western Australia’s mineral wealth has underwritten much of the nation’s prosperity. It’s time for that contribution to be reflected in our cultural institutions.

Secession may sound radical, but when equity is perpetually denied, radical becomes reasonable. Perth deserves its own National Gallery—an institution that champions Western Australian artists, curates its own voice, and holds a significant portion of the national collection. Not as a token gesture, but as a rightful claim.

Art is not just about aesthetics—it’s about identity, history, and power. And Western Australia is ready to reclaim its place in that story.

The ongoing story

 

Peter Davidson - Mine Cut Mt Whaleback 1988

Oil on hardboard A4 approx

BHP Utah - desk calender 1989

During my time as an art student in Perth, regular visits to the Art Gallery of Western Australia were both enriching and inspiring. Among the many works I encountered, several paintings deeply resonated with me—particularly those depicting landscapes that felt remote, alien, and hostile. These included Guy Grey-Smith’s Skull Springs Country (1966), Mac Betts’ Goldfields (1979), and Frank Norton’s Depuch Red. For me, these works marked the beginning of a journey into understanding how artists interpret the unique and challenging environment of the Australian outback.

Researching these artists and their paintings at AGWA throughout the 1980s gave me the confidence to venture into remote regions myself and begin painting. I wanted to bring back another story—one that could ripple outward from the red heart of the country to the leafy green rim of coastal Australia. Inspired by Grey-Smith and others, I embraced the challenge of capturing the essence of the land.

 

 

Peter Davidson

Waiting for the Powder Monkey,  Linger and Die Relics Siberia, Kalgoorlie Goldfields 2025

Charcoal pastel pencil on paper 14 cm h x 11 cm w

I was fortunate to receive valuable commissions from mining companies, which enabled me to live and teach full-time in the outback for four years. This experience allowed me to document and share images of mining landscapes—places that held personal significance, as both my maternal grandparents were orphaned in the remote desert Goldfields of Western Australia. Through painting, I sought to connect past and present, personal memory and collective history, and to contribute to the evolving visual narrative of Australia’s interior.

 

Peter Davidson