WINNER – DRAWING STUDIO Block Projects Drawing Prize, 2025
MOUTHFUL – Post dinner languor washes over me. My belly replete, eyes droopy, the lingering taste of brie in my mouth. Days of preparation consumed in mouth-fulls. Everything’s packed up. Finally. Including the two woolworths bags swaying from my shoulders, whacking at my sides as I trek home.
I arrive home and leave the dirty containers in the kitchen to clean at a time yet to be decided. I flop on my bed. Thoughts swirl, lulling me to a restless sleep.
I awake after who knows how long, and plummet into an onerous haze of drawing. I crouch over white paper, sweating and cussing as my fingertips stain the pristine surface. I sit with legs straightened, and any sudden movement is met with an interlude of aches and spasms. My arms stretch out, muscles tense, grasping my brush with dirty, blackened fingertips. I blow my nose and inspect the phlegmy mess afterward, finding, to my dismay, black specks of powder in the snot globules. Black clumps of charcoal lurk beneath my fingernails.
I worry about what I’ve drawn. I chew my nails and grimace at the sandy crunch of charcoal. I play an intense game of dress to impress with charcoal. What is charcoal? Just black powder in the tub, on the crumpled tissue, smudged on my fingertips, and all over the floor. It escapes the constraints of my hands, drifting down. That fine dust, irrepressible and ubiquitous, clustered and littered on my studio floor, smirks back up at me. Aggrieved, I weaponise my blending stumps to make it stick. The charcoal shrugs and continues to gloat.
I step away with tired eyes, my stomach empty, an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I gaze at a drawing bigger than myself, my mind so fixated on the tonal variations that I barely remember the last time I ate.
Sean (he/him) is a Naarm/Melbourne based multi-disciplinary artist, working predominantly with charcoal. His work currently explores the process of making – from hosting food functions to using drawing as a tool to re-create and co-create fleeting moments to express the complexity of ourselves and the world we inhabit. He explores ephemerality and the inevitable and paradoxical separation which underscores social connection. A pivotal component to his practice involves the physical act of preparing and sharing food with others.
Email: seanyholt77@gmail.com
