Washed and Found – a study of items found washed up entangled in kelp on Waratah Bay beach – pencil drawings and acrylic paintings – Suelyn Watterson

Thursday 17 January to February 18, 2019. Opening event between 6 and 8pm, Friday 18 January.

Artist Statement

Washed and found is a slow walk along the kelp line on Waratah beach, finding treasures; shark eggs, sea horse, shells, rocks, sea anemone and so much more. Back home a google search finds that it is a Rusty Carpetshark egg case, Parascyllium ferrugineum  and a further search finds that the other egg is the Australian Swellshark or Draughtboard shark, a species of catshark Scyliorhinidae. The google search also reveals it’s not a sea horse it’s the Weedy Sea Dragon. To get to know these treasures better I started to draw.

The collection of pencil drawings on paper are observations and explorations – not botanical studies. They are interpretations, responding to the textures and surfaces of the creatures and the kelp. The acrylic paintings on canvas are further interpretations responding to the sand blown surface that hide the washed up collection before the next tide comes to drag it back into the water.

Suelyn Watterson

Art and Visual Communication Design teacher, 42 years,

Manyung Gallery Mornington 1974 and 1976

Switchback Gallery, Morwell  1985

Leongatha Gallery 1987

Guildford Lane Gallery in Melbourne Group show 2010

Gecko Gallery L’oeuvre des oeufs.  Group show 2016