Rachel Duckhouse uses drawing to explore the dynamic flow and movement of things in relation to each other (sea and wind, buildings and time, walking and looking) and to think about how these things connect to social history, personal experience and memory. She seeks out flows and forms that can been investigated through walking, conversation, observation and sketchbook drawing, and developed into larger scale pen and ink drawings and/or etchings. Her drawings are made in response to places; looking backwards and forwards from one time and space to another, allowing experiences of different landscapes and architectures to overlap on etching plates and paper.
The Canberra series was made in response to an artist residency at Megalo Print Studio in Canberra. Duckhouse walked all over the city but particularly around the artificial Lake Burley Griffin. The shapes derive from concrete wall sections of the National Gallery of Australia, and contain questions, thoughts and memories of her experience of that landscape and its histories.
At Grenitote i and ii derive from an artist residency at Taigh Chearsabhagh, Lochmaddy, North Uist. Duckhouse spent two weeks there after walking the Hebridean Way, crossing 10 islands of the Outer Hebrides. The structures are parts of sheep fanks, shared and maintained by crofters over generations, standing up or falling down through time.
