Drawing in Space, ‘Art’ in the Landscape

A recent walk in the nearby countryside led to the discovery of, an encounter with, what might be termed an unintentional sculpture, or perhaps, given the thing’s linear nature, a drawing in three-dimensional space. ‘The thing’ is in fact a broken down section of wire fence, barely noticeable against the grass upon which it lies when walking close to it, past it, yet striking when approached from below, walking uphill towards it, viewed against the sky, as I hope the following photographs may illustrate.

Viewed from a variety of angles, ‘in the round’ as any 3D object should properly be appreciated to achieve a full sense of its form, the fence/drawing displays a pleasing combination of, & play between, horizontal & vertical elements, a free-flowing, open tracery of sensual, curving, delicate-yet-purposeful lines & more massive, scribbly agglomerations or ‘passages’, which gives it too a sense of energy & something of a dynamic quality suggestive of movement, of flow. The lines, of course, exist in three dimensions, creating interesting forms such as – dependent upon viewpoint - helix-like combinations of curves, loops & more severe, jagged peaks & aggressively twisted folds, these latter similar, indeed, to aspects of the landscape such as rock formations. Whatever, these accidental transformations wrought have something of a ‘rightness’ to them & bring this to the whole & an appreciation of it, as art (designated). Also present may be observed a certain 'measured', point-to-point or join-the-dots effect appropriate to drawing, courtesy of another of the fence’s physical features, the loops that serve to keep separate the individual squares of the design.

The whole, I think, has a certain elegance and aesthetic quality that transcends its damaged state & consequent removal from a functional context, & provides an interesting addition to the landscape of which it is an organically-evolving, interactive part (note the tufts of sheep’s wool adhering in places to the fence).

The images are presented in a sequence that intends to convey something of the experience of encountering the ‘drawing’ in the landscape, seen & composed in relation to other aspects of its surroundings such as telegraph poles & wires, trees, the long grass in which it resides & which constitute another element of pictorial ‘mark-making’, etc.