Fenestration, an architectural term for the design and placement of multiple windows or other openings in a façade, is at once the title and curatorial construct for this group exhibition. Throughout the history of abstraction, the visualised idea of framed and ordered pictorial space has continued to engage artists, with endless permutations of line, form, colour, material and media made possible.

The device of a portal for looking - a fenestra - between interior and exterior provides site, border, and potent metaphor for multiple drawings made to fit a uniform window. Each artist has been given a window from which they can perch, dangle, reflect, look out, or in, or even close and cover up.

Fenestration presents abstract drawings from The Drawing Collective, a global cohort of 35+ artist-drawers, and in a gesture of amity, alongside drawings by guest artists from DRAW Space.

Munira Naqui and Lisa Pang,
Co-curators, Fenestration

Artists

Wahida Azhari (DE), Milija Belic (FR), Louise Blyton (AU), Lorenzo Bocca (IT), Christine Boiry (FR), Beti Bricelj (SI), Caro Enax (DE), Katharina Fischborn (DE), Daniel G. Hill (US), André Geertse (NL), Ellen F. Golden (US), Gerard van der Horst (NL), Jeff Kellar (US), Erdem Küçükköroglu (TR), Emma Langridge (AU), Danielle Lescot (FR), Marilyn Massey Chapin (FR), Frank Mauceri (US), Gitte Mørk (DK), Munira Naqui (US), Lisa Pang (AU), Michael Perlbach (DE), Neerja Chandna Peters (IN), Marion Piper (UK), Tineke Porck (NL), Jun Sato (FR), Diane Scott (NZ), Jamel Sghaier (DE/TN), Bogumila Strojna (FR), Truong Thanh (VN), Wilma Vissers (NL), Maria de Werker (NL, Mark Wethli (US) with guest artists Sarah Eddowes (AU), James Gardiner (AU), Kristy Gordon (AU), Melinda Hunt (AU), Gary Warner (AU), Belinda Yee (AU)

Beti Bricelj 

Untitled, 2025 (detail)

Acrylic paint and acrylic marker on paper
100 x 20 cm

Wilma Vissers

Untitled, 2025

drawing on paper
100 x 20 cm

Katharina Fischborn

Diaphanous Architecture, 2025 (detail)

Scalpel drawings on unique woodcut prints, Wenzhou paper and offset colour
100 x 20 cm

Christine Boiry

Untitled, 2025 (detail)

Coloured pencil on paper
100 x 20 cm

A short history of the Drawing Collective

The Drawing Collective started with a whisper of a dream. The idea began with a casual conversation with couple of artist friends one evening in Paris several years ago. The discussion was about abstract drawing and its place in our contemporary practice. This idea germinated over the long intercontinental flight back home that followed. I wondered how the other artists I came to know on the Internet felt about abstract drawing as a common ground to connect across geographic, linguistic and cultural barriers. I had very thoughtful conversations with many on this topic.

I was very lucky to find a group of enthusiastic artists across the globe who pursued a rigorous practice of drawing even when in some cases their focus was elsewhere; and in fields as varied as painting, sculpture, installation and architecture. There was an inherent desire to connect with other fellow artists, to share their work and their ideas. The Drawing Collective was launched in 2014.

The Drawing Collective is a virtual community of 35 artists from 15 countries who are joined in their pursuit and practice of abstract drawing. Tracing the inception of abstraction as a formal device to turn away from representation, and alongside principles of reductive and nonobjective art, artists in this collective actively explore new definitions of drawing and the use of contemporary tools as well as testing the limitations of boundaries.

The conscious selection of the medium of drawing as well as the focus on minimalist principles regarding form is the framework within which these artists create their work. The mission of the Collective is to explore the definition and boundaries of drawing. The artists own their own definition of what drawing means to them. Their work counteracts the apparent separation of art and life, interior and exterior, regionalism and cosmopolitanism, paving the way for art as a universal discourse.

Munira Naqui,
Founder, The Drawing Collective