Collection: Judith Ajani

My art is born in the Snowy Mountains, on primordial granite rocks that once lived deep within Earth.

High above the tree line, with crisp air washing over my face and into my lungs, walking becomes rhythmic in this land of rocks and plants living in dynamic harmony. I melt into this world for somehow it feels deeply familiar. Calm, silver-cloudy days are favourites for laying paper or silk on rock to draw with my black inkstick. Their fragility echoes mine – our fragility – living on Earth. Back in my National Art School studio, colour is brought into the drawing’s life. Dabbing on the greens, magentas, yellows and blues as they call: slowly layering, melting boundaries.

My drawing practice is about trying to live as a Responsive Carer of Earth (and all its beings): a transferral through drawing of the harmony I feel in the Snowies to a visualisation of humanity living with Earth caringly. Pathways through are always present walking in the eroded Snowy Mountains. Pathways through is my main compositional drawing device. It signals hope. It is inspiring: the antithesis of the fear increasingly engulfing humanity globally.