Contradictions is a developing project which sits between my photographic and drawing practices. It is an ongoing record of my home city Christchurch, New Zealand, post a devastating series of earthquakes - a consideration of erasure, impermanence and memory. The drawings are at once a form of recording and creation, a new weaving of light, of time and space and loss and hope. The movement within the pictures echoes the jolting motion of the earth, which is now embedded in our places, brains and bodies. The buildings depicted are in varying states of restoration, rebuilding and replacement, some still awaiting demolition. These photos are single frame, icm images, taken in lowlight and deliberately managed with in camera techniques to emulate traditional graphite drawing in the final print. Images from this series and the previous series ‘Land’ were selected as finalists in Parkin Drawing Prize in 2020 and 2021, and exhibited at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts gallery.

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About

Darnia Hobson is a graphic designer and illustrator living near Christchurch, New Zealand. She is currently studying printmaking and drawing, and has taught art and creative photography to children over many years. She has an obsessive interest in still life and street photography, preferring in camera work to post production. She’s a sucker for black and white, flowers and a kitsch sunset, diplomatically loving film and digital equally. Her recent photographic work has been an exploration of the boundaries of ‘drawing’ in the broader sense and has grown to include photography as an integral part of her drawing practice rather than as a separate entity.