Jacqui Stockdale’s Drawing the Labyrinth comprises more than one hundred metres of drawings presented in a fold-out concertina sketchbook set out on tables and configured in the form of a labyrinth. This continuous length of drawings reflects the artists’ intimate journey over a twelve month period, variously depicting moments spent travelling across Europe, incorporating a diverse array of portraits such as friends, family members, self-portraits, anonymous people on trains, teenagers in their classrooms, a live band on stage, even a woman giving birth.

Making these sketches Stockdale seeks a direct connection with her subject, often drawing people she has spontaneously approached and invited to sit for her. Her mark making is a free and fluid process – embracing chance and happenstance within the overall composition – the artist comments that ‘like life, you go forward and work with the mistakes’.

Stockdale’s labyrinth evokes the unfolding, serendipitous nature of experience and the ways that we share and comprehend existence as a series of intersecting observations and evolving narratives.

Jacqui Stockdale: Drawing the Labyrinth is a NETS Victoria touring exhibition that will tour to 5 venues around Victoria in 2016. A range of

public programs, an education resource and exhibition catalogue will accompany the exhibition tour. The exhibition is currently on at Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery until the 28th February 2016.

About the artist

Jacqui Stockdale, based in Melbourne, is an acclaimed Australian visual artist known for her theatrical portrait photography, figurative paintings, drawings and collages. Her practice explores cultural identity, folklore and the transformative nature of masquerade and ritual in society.