Drawings From 1982-2025

Ten different series of paperworks spanning 43 years – a suite of three works from each. This survey of Julia Morison's archive showcases an extraordinary range of materials: controlled inks, watercolour, and densely worked charcoal fields. Notable works include the Centrefolds (2000), which employ dragon's blood on Bible paper; the Grid paintings (2011), featuring cotton dipped in earthquake silt; and Towards Rhombus (1982), with its exacting line work in charcoal and coloured pencil. The exhibition references materials from Morison's alchemical vocabulary—lead, ash, silver, and gold—first mapped in Vademecum (1985, Te Papa Tongarewa collection). Morison invests matter with context and meaning, creating compositions of considerable presence.