Haunted – Waterloo State Forest


Haunted
By Lily Mae Martin
Ink on paper
56 x 76cm
2017

These drawings – the landscapes – are challenging, but this one almost didn’t happen. It is on the last sheet of cold pressed paper, which I bought way back in 2013. ( 2013 Lily made a number of poor choices. ) The paper is beautiful, but rough as and my pens just get ruined on it far to quickly. But I don’t want to waste things and this one is meant to match up with the gully one ( in size, at least )
The foreground was the easiest, it is quite illustrative ( dare I say ) and was easy to get my head and pen around. However when it came to creating a sense of depth in the image with the middle and backgrounds – I did loose it all at one point. I had the horrible week of trying to fix it, and thinking I may as well have to abandon it after many, many, many weeks of work. Which was really upsetting.
I kept on at it though, got some advice from my Gene and really hammed up the contrast in this image. it is meant to be dark. Dealing with the after affects of death and grief.
I’m working on a brief for these.


In the gully
By Lily Mae Martin
Ink on paper
56 x 76cm
2016

So they can sit either side of the largest one:


Waterloo State Forest, view from the back
Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on Paper
2016

My proposed idea is:

However there are more coming so this may change for sure. I thought I’d just do these three, but noooo. There’s many more to come and a statement too.

In the gully – new drawing

in_the_gully_lily_mae_martin
In the gully – Waterloo state forest
By Lily Mae Martin
76 x 56cm
Ink on paper
2016

This is half the size of the other landscape I did, but I am pretty sure it took me just as long? There’s so much detail in this, the tiny bits of trees and shrubs.. So many times I felt I couldn’t do it. So many times I thought I should stop and move on but I pushed on through.
Though the news last week made me think well, what’s the fucking point? And I just stopped when it was a mere two hours work from completion.

I’ve spent the last week trying to keep my cool. Not quit all my jobs and all of my life. I think I did well. I may have eaten too much toast and bread and a whole thing of brownies – but considering the destruction I used to be capable of – I’ve really made myself proud.

I had coffee with a friend on Friday and as we were saying our goodbyes I think I was mumbling something about my drawing going down the toilet and she said she could spot all the different species in the one I was working on, and how cool it was. And just like that, the light went on and I was really excited again.

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So thank you, friend 🙂

New drawing – Waterloo State Forest, view from the back

WaterlooForestfinal_lily_mae_martin

Waterloo State Forest, view from the back
Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on Paper

Waterloo State Forest, view from the back is an exploration of death and grief through the peripheral. Much of my work focuses on the intimate details of the human body, but watching a loved one die can complicate that work. Death is the process of the body shutting down, and documenting that isn’t always possible or right. Waterloo is the documentary of a life passing, and of the lives around it changing, as it is experienced through the landscape: a hushed forest, pitted with mineshafts; the perpetual shifting of light and shadow; the symbiosis of regrowth and decay.