The People’s Choice for the 2020 Alice Prize is a striking charcoal drawing by well-known Adelaide based artist Margaret Ambridge. The work, titled Struggling to Remember, (Burnt charcoal, compressed charcoal, raindrops on paper) was a clear favourite as voted by visitors who viewed the exhibition in person at the Araluen Art Centre.
Struggling to remember
Margaret Ambridge
I collected burnt branches from fire ravaged country and started drawing with the crumbled charcoal. I became immersed in the ‘scrub’ while I was drawing. The interruption of raindrops falling on the iron roof of the studio seemed so at odds with the rain parched land I was drawing.
I took the partly finished work outside and let the raindrops fall on the paper.
The charcoal ‘splattered’, and the paper sucked up the moisture. I continued adding charcoal, and the paper remembered where the raindrops had fallen.
Our land is struggling to remember.
74cm x 140cm burnt charcoal, compressed charcoal, raindrops on paper
Margaret Ambridge
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