Artwork Information

In 1984, Colin McCahon travelled to Sydney to attend I Will Need Words, a major exhibition of his paintings. On Wednesday 11 April, the day prior to his exhibition opening, he went missing while walking in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens and was discovered by police the following day in Centennial Park, some five kilometres away, disorientated and unable to recall what had occurred.

In FrenchBayDarkly . . ., 2017, John Reynolds creates an aerial perspective dreamscape which imagines Colin McCahon’s day-long disappearance in Sydney. In a process mental mapping, Reynolds’ white lines imagine McCahon’s journey and evoke emotions he may have experienced while lost.

The mystery of where Colin McCahon went has also absorbed Martin Edmond, whose publication Dark Night: Walking with McCahon (2011) retraces McCahon’s journey as the Stations of the Cross.