Oxide, spent ferric chloride, ink, gum arabic on Hahnemühle paper
106 x 156 cm

This drawing is an elegy to the artist’s late father and to the Aral Sea, a vast inland sea in Uzbekistan that has almost completely dried up due to Soviet mismanagement. The resulting salinity crisis is an environmental catastrophe. Having worked with salinity in the Murray Darling Basin, Hall’s father was involved in attempts to remediate the Aral Sea. Using imagery from photographs taken there 20 years ago, the work speaks to a sense of absence within the landscape and to the expanse of loss; as a concept spanning both time and place, both personal and collective. The work utilises oxides, spent ferric chloride, ink and gum arabic which react and resist with each other to build layers of marks.

Image: Stephen Best