Elwyn, Lynn, 1984, Gate to the Black Field, mixed media, (Source: McKenzie, J., 1986, Drawing in Australia. Contemporary images and ideas, Macmillan, p144).

This image demonstrates concern with the figure-ground issue that is not at all straight forward. Firstly the black field is established as the central shape and is surrounded by a significant amount of white space of the page that sets it up as being a subject in its own right. The gate is drawn within the shape of the field as a reversed out structure. There is a visual double-play of framing going on, but the essential reading of the gate being in the mid-foreground with the field as a plane beginning before the gate and extending way beyond it is never in doubt. There is a strong tension between positive and negative shapes in this drawing.