Structural Passages Feature Artist Melinda Hunt: Maps of Being and Walking Drawings Made in the Studio

 

Melinda Hunt: Maps of Being and Walking Drawings Made in the Studio

Walking and drawing is generative. Assisted by the repetitive physical action that is walking, the mind is further stimulated by the activity of drawing while parsing sensorial input from the fast-moving landscape. Memories arise, the mind wanders, current complexities are processed and sometimes resolved; new, unexpected thoughts arise. There is an overspill of content in the mind leading to speculation and invention. 

Walking mostly at night without a prescribed route, I often draw with both hands while wearing a harness to hold my drawing board and carrying my materials in my pockets. Sometimes I record my walks with a backward-facing camera that captures where I have been. I revisit these recordings in my studio while working on larger drawings. I regard these videos as drawings and save them to a YouTube channel.

Maps of Being XIX is a larger drawing made in the studio from smaller works made while walking. It is a finalist in the Muswellbrook Art Prize 2025 (work on paper).

Maps of Being XIX, 2025
Acrylic, charcoal, pastel and pencil on polyester drafting film, 70 × 91 cm

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