david edgar ― explosive moment

The dynamic power on one explosive moment in time, as water hits a rock, is brilliantly captured on paper by David Edgar…

As his creative journey progressed, David continually pared back. “It came to a point as an artist that I just had to strip everything to its most basic form so that nothing distracts from my mark-making. For the last 15 or so years I have used charcoal and paper, and a palette of black and white with occasional touches of grey.”

A visit to Eaglehawk Neck, where he stood transfixed as enormous waves came crashing down on the rocks, inspired the piece David submitted for Handmark’s Works on Paper exhibition. “It was such a powerful and dynamic moment in nature and I knew I had to capture it on paper. But how? That was the challenge.”

That process took endless months and involved working from hundreds of photographs. But, the result is astoundingly powerful and brilliantly brings to life an explosive moment frozen in time. “The dynamic of a mark is the fundamental – how am I going to translate that?”

Image credit: David Edgar, Inner moment, 2024, Charcoal on paper, 115 x 74 cm