In February 2026, DRAW Space is delighted to present Peter Sharp + Michelle Cawthorn / SECOND FIDDLE
Opening Thursday 5 February, 6-8pm. Please join the artists and the DRAW Space community to celebrate this new body of work developed during an extended residency at The Albers Foundation, USA.
In March–April 2025, Dharawal/Sydney-based artists and life partners Peter Sharp and Michelle Cawthorn undertook a joint residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut, USA. Situated on a 70-acre wooded property, the residency offered uninterrupted studio time, supporting individual practices alongside a shared period of reflection.
Josef and Anni Albers were influential modern artists and educators who began teaching at the Bauhaus in Germany before continuing their work in the United States at Black Mountain College and Yale University. The Foundation continues this legacy through artist residencies and through access to its extensive archives and research library.
Working independently from the Albers Archive, Sharp and Cawthorn developed distinct bodies of work that come together in this exhibition. Responding to the residency’s surrounding landscape and to sustained dialogue with the Foundation’s curatorial team, Sharp has developed a large collection of black-and-white drawings that shift between natural and abstract forms. Engaging with Anni Albers’s weavings held within the Archive, Cawthorn has produced a series of nuanced coloured-pencil drawings featuring layered geometric patterns that echo the texture of woven fabric. The exhibition also includes a new joint two-channel video work, Tickle, which stages a visual conversation between the two artists, with neither playing second fiddle.
Together, the exhibition brings these parallel investigations into relation, revealing practices that remain separate yet intimately engaged.
The exhibition opens at 6pm Thursday 5 February and will run until 5pm Sunday 1 March.
Opening night wine by Famelia Wine.
Left to Right: Michelle Cawthorn, Anni’s Crepe Weave 2025, coloured pencil and graphite on paper, 30.5 x 22.7 cm. Michelle Cawthorn, Three Sheets 2025, coloured pencil and graphite on paper, 30.5 x 22.7 cm. Michelle Cawthorn Through Anni’s Window - Trees 2025, coloured pencil and graphite on paper, 30.5 x 22.7 cm.
Peter Sharp, Albers Drawings (installation view) 2025, charcoal on paper.
