We Are Drawings is an exhibition of collaborative and solo drawings by Northern Rivers NSW artists Claudie Frock and René Bolten. For more than a decade, the artists have developed connected practices that explore drawing as a daily, expanded and site-responsive process. Their collaborative exchanges extend beyond one another to encompass the materials they use and the places they inhabit, creating a distinctive shared visual language grounded in movement, rhythmic and durational mark-making, and embodied experience. They are continually drawing themselves into existence.

Working with both conventional art materials and botanical inks and charcoals handmade by Frock from sustainably sourced, grown, gifted and foraged plants, lichens and reclaimed waste-stream materials, the exhibition reflects an ongoing dialogue between material, place and process. Following the devastating 2022 Northern Rivers floods, which directly affected both artists, Frock's research into botanical drawing materials has become an increasingly significant aspect of her practice, transforming local ecologies and regenerative processes into art materials and tools.

Drawing is central to both artists' lives beyond the studio. For Bolten, a daily drawing practice supports creativity and cognitive wellbeing following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. For both artists, drawing has become a therapeutic, resilient, and present moment practice, providing continuity and connection through personal and environmental upheaval, including the aftermath of the 2022 Lismore floods.

The exhibition presents works created over recent years across Bundjalung, Gumbaynggir and Biripi Countries, as well as during a Watershed Studio Residency in Galway, Ireland/Eire, and a return visit to Bolten's homeland in the Netherlands. Together, these works trace an evolving conversation across landscapes, cultures and materials, revealing drawing as a shared language that transcends geography while remaining deeply rooted in place.

In We Are Drawings the artists will present a series of both solo drawings and collaborative drawings featuring abstract and figurative, portraiture, landscape, and still life works. A key component of the exhibition will be a live collaborative drawing developed within the gallery throughout the exhibition period. Rather than presenting drawing as a finished object alone, this work invites audiences to witness the unfolding process of collaboration. The exhibition foregrounds drawing as an artistic discipline, an act of presence, and a lived practice, that fosters connection, care, resilience and wellbeing, while expanding contemporary understandings of what drawing can be.