Alison Clouston

Alison Clouston

New Zealand

Diamond Python 2007
Copperhead 2007

ink, watercolor, calfskin
Courtesy of the artist and Bowen Galleries

By drawing on a calf’s hide, Alison Clouston re-colonises disappearing indigenous creatures into the pastoral landscape. The ink image is permanent – as if sheltering its subjects from extinction.

By drawing bones, Clouston gives a warning of resource depletion, as well as creating an elegy for what is lost, or about to be lost. Snakes shed and renew their skins; their coiled repose suggests the cyclical nature of the world.