Sticky Drawings

THRF Group – Creative Health Gallery at SpARC & Modbury Hospital, 27 November 2023 – 20 March 2024

Sticky Drawings series were made during the strange days of isolation and quarantine in 2020, with the outside world locked down, our domestic world was engulfed in the struggle with my son’s Eating Disorder. We experienced the sense of isolation accompanying Anorexia Nervosa, within the isolation of the global pandemic.

My son has always collected sticks and twigs and moved these in his hands to create patterns or stories imagined. These ordinary and ever present objects became symbolic of his presence, and the sticks depicted in these artworks are drawn from his actual collection.

These works begin as miniature drawing son discarded papers and are then were printed at large scale to produce the final product. I use the motif of my son’s many collected “sticks” to explore our ongoing journey to recovery, which engenders, resilience, persistence, family unity across two homes.

Sticks can build a fire, make a shelter, and support a forest canopy. The distorted beauty myth of the modern age urges us to be “stick figure“ thin. These “Sticky” drawings contemplate the big ideas in small things.

— Gus Clutterbuck, 2023