Moving in Mysterious Ways...

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 18/11/08

This drawing being processed from an original newspaper source again exhibiting such quintessentially ‘photographic’ qualities as the capture of a split-second of swift movement & displaying a consequent formal contrast between sharp-focussed near-to-middle-distance stillness & nearer & far blur, this being represented by a swiping motion of the eraser in a manner that once more references the ‘unpainting’ technique applied by Gerhard Richter to his photographically derived oil paintings, thus ‘unfocussing’ their highly-realised imagery into another aesthetic & distinctly painterly dimension.

One particular aspect of the drawings that is impossible to communicate virtually is the physical nature of the surface: the heavily-worked dark tonal areas of this example, for instance, have a glossy, light-reflective sheen that is completely lost in the process of reproduction.

Soundtrack:


Moon Wiring Club ‘Shoes Off and Chairs Away’
‘Rufus Wainwright’
Public Image Ltd ‘Metal Box’
Rachel Unthank & the Winterset ‘The Bairns’
Throwing Muses ‘In a Doghouse’ (CD1 + ‘Fish’)

And, commemorating the anniversary today of the death of Nick Drake, the 3 wonderful albums released during his brief lifetime, their fragile beauty & magic enduring still, a fitting epitaph:


‘Five Leaves Left’, Bryter Layter’ & ‘Pink Moon’

Today’s date is also significant for the opening, at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, of ‘Traces’, an exhibition of paintings & drawings by Paul Rosenbloom. Having their inspirational origins in the study of graptolite fossils & also the overlaid images of Aboriginal rock art, the drawings & paintings display the evidence of the process of their making, allowing the viewer an archaeological reading & appreciation of the formal vocabulary of various layers of marks, textures & pigment, the alternately partially-revealed & -hidden traces of which are suspended in exquisite tension. There is too a wonderful all-over surface activity & beautiful, subtly glowing light emanating from the images: work to be seen & experienced, just like the landscape from which it derives.