Graphite pencil and charcoal on cotton paper.
114cm x 180cm
Unframed
Hands Of Time
This drawing is based on one of Australia's historical days: on the 16th of August 1975, prime minister Gough Whitlam poured a handful of sand in the hand of Vincent Lingiari to symbolise handing back the land to the traditional owners.
This was going to be a huge change and the start of respect, hope and fairness. And then.... Life continued as normal. After all this time, nothing has really changed. Every now and then, we create a law or a press event recognising that aboriginal people are unfairly treated but it quickly fades back down into the background..
This is not a perfect drawing from a realism point of view as I wanted to keep the original grainy photo as a reference.
This event was half a century ago. The hourglass is intentionally drawn full of sand from top to bottom to show that there is no more room for waiting and that action is truly overdue.