On the drawing board, above right, is my current work in progress, Swan Song (ink, gouache, water soluble graphite and watercolour, 76.5 x 56 cm). The small study on the left, a finished work in its own right, was made in my tiny Melbourne hotel room last August between screenings at the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival. Shane and I had recently sold our respective houses in Melbourne and Ballarat after buying a house in Ballarat East, the first home we’ve owned together. At this watershed time, we were awaiting settlement and Ballarat was very much on my mind. As its title implies, Swan Song marks an ending, without which there can be no new beginnings.
The black swan is a personal signifier for home, initially associated with childhood visits with my parents to the Melbourne Botanical Gardens from our family home in nearby St.Kilda. Nowadays I can’t see a swan without thinking of the black swans on Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree.