Swim

Rujeko Hockley: She has said that she wanted to challenge herself to approach drawing in such a way that it could argue with a painting. And I think that this is a drawing that really exemplifies that.

Narrator: Curator Rujeko Hockley.

Rujeko Hockley: The image shows a figure in the top left register in negative space. The water is in charcoal. The person is in the negative space, the white of the page with just their head, their hands and their feet visible with a rope hanging, perhaps a rope swing, something along those lines. But these are the only details that we really get along with the title, Swim.

Narrator: As you look around the gallery, you’ll see that Packer treats drawing as something independent—not just as a step on the way to painting.

Rujeko Hockley: Even if there’s the same image, the drawing is its own work, the painting is its own work. And there’s a relationship or a counter relationship, but it’s not a one-to-one necessarily. I think drawing is a really important part of her practice because in the way that you scribble before you put sentences together, or you have a sentence before you have a paragraph, drawing can be seen as this building block towards this larger practice of painting, even if they’re not a one-to-one, as I mentioned.