Silent Night is a series of intimate ink and coloured pencil drawings on cartridge paper (35 × 30 cm), created between 2011 and 2012. The works focus on a small ensemble of rustic metal objects – each drawn with care, memory, and attentiveness to their quiet presence. Among them are four Japanese bronze bells, or furin, one distinguished by a naturally worn wooden handle; an antique brass altar candlestick, still bearing the stump of a once-lit candle; an old oil lamp, modest in scale but rich in patina; and a single weight, its surface dulled by age and use.
Though collected separately over time, these objects share a kindred material language. Their forms echo one another in stature and scale, while their surfaces speak in the same hushed tones – worn, weathered, touched by time. Their beauty lies not in opulence or ornament, but in restraint: the muted gleam of tarnished metal, the slight irregularity of a cast form, the subtle marks of hands long gone.
What binds these objects together is more than their aesthetic affinity. They are among the few belongings that made the journey with me during a significant relocation – from Japan to Australia in 2011. As such, they carry the resonance of continuity amidst change. They became companions of transition, anchors of familiarity in a new landscape. In the drawings, this emotional weight is quietly acknowledged – their stillness suggesting not just the absence of sound, but a kind of listening.
The title Silent Night evokes both stillness and reverence. These are objects that once emitted light or sound – now silent, unlit, unstruck – but still heavy with presence. The drawings are not merely depictions, but meditations. Each rendering is a study in patience, a way of spending time with things that once served a function, and now serve as carriers of memory, atmosphere, and personal meaning.
Presented with a delicate touch, the works do not elevate these objects to icons, but rather allow them to remain humble – grounded in their form, their history, their silence. There is no spectacle here, only a quiet regard. The series becomes an offering to stillness, to endurance, to the dignity of things that remain.
morgan veness 