SHANE DRINKWATER

First published: March 2026

Maps of astronomy or astrology, medieval pilgrimage or Aboriginal songlines? Tasmanian-born synesthete Shane Drinkwater provides no key to his art

A circle orbited by rings of numbers. A latitude and longitude of shapes on parchment paper, implying an ancient map. The cartographic works of Shane Drinkwater suggest linear stories but then defy them. His obsessively geometric work seems encoded with definitions, but he would prefer that viewers react viscerally to make their own meaning. Drinkwater is dyslexic. He says his art is all about mark-making, that the elements themselves create meaning by generating sensation in the body. This creation of meaning is something that he did not experience when looking at words on a page as a child – a lack of elucidation that traumatised him.

The artist in his studio, 2025; photo: Fabienne Drinkwater

He makes his paintings on vintage paper – at first using the old dress-making patterns left in his mother’s studio, now hunting for them online and in bric-a-brac shops – dying and painting it to texturise and strengthen. He uses acrylic paint, ink pen and some collage on the parchment-like surface to make art that is schematic, illustrative of intimate fields comprised of repeated elements: circles, crosses and, in particular, numbers, but also stars, arrows and dots. Compositionally, they give the impression of topographical maps or aerial landscapes, reminiscent of the interplay of zodiac symbols with solar systems, or of Tibetan thangkas, those sacred paintings in which the cycles of time, the movement of the cosmos, and the weight of karma are depicted as visual meditations, nudging viewers toward enlightenment through their incantatory patterns. Drinkwater’s work also calls to min

Untitled, 2024

Drinkwater’s work also calls to mind cellular structures, biological interiors where circles revolve around spheres, lines undulate in grids, and bony strokes perambulate. The overall effect insinuates codification or symbolism, though the artist provides no key to unscramble their significance (very few of his works even have titles), leaving the viewer right where Drinkwater wants them; left to engage with their own relationship to the shapes that repeat, twist and switch perspective the more one gazes at them.