You will be able to book tickets from 9:30am on Wednesday 29th January.
Book here
Lecturers: Joe Frost, Tango Conway
Location: Sydney Opera House
Drawing at the Sydney Opera House is a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of a major architectural and cultural landmark and respond through drawing.
Based in the SOH’s Centre for Creativity studio, with views onto Sydney Harbour, the workshop will give students access to draw in a rehearsal for an SOH performance and in non-public spaces. A guided tour and curator talks will introduce the history of the building and its contemporary activities.
The focus of your work will depend on your experience of the Sydney Opera House. Inspiration can be found in Utzon’s unique architectural forms, the cultural activities within and around the building or the views afforded by the Bennelong Point location. The opportunity to work for four continuous days will enable a process of developing ideas and impressions through drawing.
Lloyd Rees drawing
LECTURERS
Joe Frost’s visual thinking evolved in the urban environment and he is, in a sense, a local painter. Sydney’s remnant industrial areas were the subject of his earliest drawings and paintings and he has made extensive series of work in response to the western reaches of Sydney Harbour, the city’s CBD and the green, suburban precinct of Denistone. At times he has worked en plein air but his renditions of place have more usually been filtered through memory in the studio, where his approach to painting is improvisatory and layered.
Joe Frost, Coastal composite 1 (Bay of L’Estaque / Coogee Bay), 100 x 140cm
Tango Conway is an artist currently living and working on Dharug/Gundungurra land, Katoomba, Sydney. Her practice is centred in contemporary drawing, exploring the tensions between representation and realism. She employs processes that expand on traditional methodologies playing with the slippages between perceiving and interpreting space. Conway’s work exaggerates the theatricality of drawing processes. Through the manipulation and erasure of structural marks from the initial sketching stages, her final pieces are rendered with a simplified line, concealing the process from which it came. Incorporating people, objects, architecture and found images, she portrays imagined scenes that skirt on the edge of representation. Rather than serving as a precursor to another medium, Conway’s drawings celebrate drawing itself.
Tango Conway, ‘Hail on the roof of a van’, 2024
graphite, coloured pencil and graphite transfer on paper
triptych – 106×235.5cm
Please note: The Sydney Opera House is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed building and all workshop participants are responsible for ensuring there is no damage to the site.
Bottled ink, acrylic paint and oil paint are not permitted in this workshop.
All students must listen to SOH Staff instructions when moving through spaces and adhere to safety policies.
Covered, comfortable shoes are essential (no thongs or sandals). Bring a hat and sunscreen for protection while working outdoors.
Luka Orlandini, Drawing from SSO rehearsal, Drawing at the SOH workshop 2024
Jorn Utzon, page from the Yellow Book
Materials Guide
When drawing throughout the building and its exterior spaces, we will use pencil only – this could be graphite pencil, coloured pencil or charcoal pencil. Bring erasers – kneadable and hard.
In the Centre for Creativity studio the following materials may be used: charcoal (in stick form), pastel (pencil or stick), watercolour, paint pens and ink pens. No oil-based mediums such as oil crayon are to be used.
Bring a sketchbook and a range of papers: cartridge or other lightweight papers for quicker drawings, heavier papers (e.g. Canson Dessin for pencil and light wash, Hot Pressed or Cold Pressed watercolour papers for watercolour or pastel drawings, Stonehenge for charcoal etc.) for sustained drawings.
Bring a lightweight drawing board if you have one. Brings bulldog clips, tape and any other basic equipment to suit your approach to drawing.
