Tango Conway: Statement

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.

'Notes on Reciprocty' Statement

These works were created during a one-month residency undertaken by Tango in April this year at CasCaDas ArtSpace, Barcelona.

Ranging from her distinct drawing style to more experimental pieces, this series explores a drawing process inspired by her travels. ‘Entwined’, ‘Enmeshed’ and ‘Entangled’ map elements from various sources: napkin motifs, carved marble pieces found on the street and sketches made in situ at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – all playing with the flatness of the paper’s surface.

Towards the end of her residency, Tango produced the triptych ‘Hail on the Roof of a Van’ and accompanying works ‘Splash I’ and ‘First Drop’. These drawings were inspired by a hailstorm that descended on Barcelona on the eve of Saint Jordi Day, Catalonia’s celebration of literature and romance. Fusing the sight of hail splashing into puddles and sensations of rest and relief.