Black Xmas!

graphite & putty eraser/diptych 60x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 11/12/08

Given that a recurring sub-theme of recent posts has concerned the deep-black areas of particular drawings & the failure of the subsequent reproductive process (i.e. the scanning-for-blogging part) to communicate certain physical aspects of such (e.g. the nature of the surface of heavily-applied soft graphite), the original newspaper photograph from which this drawing was processed presented itself in insistent fashion.

Also appealing was the format of the original image - a portait in 'landscape', of course - which lent itself to being produced as a diptych, the right-hand panel of which became entirely 'abstract' in ostensible appearance in the manner of (non-) colour field painting (with an area of the paper support left blank, to emphasize both itself & the drawn section, & the difference & relationship between), although filled, animated, of course with the incidence of mark-making, & thus as 'representational' - of the drawing process, an ontologically reciprocal record of the artist's authorial, individual, embodied presence & movements through time & space, of the 'work' of art - as the panel containing (the secondary concern of) 'image-content'. A notable feature to emerge from such a process is the inevitable, obvious join between the two panels of the whole, where they meet (such a fissure marking a critical difference between photographic source - continuous, seamless in appearance - & 'de-photographized' drawing), which might present itself as an issue to be explored further at some stage, the question of edges (which also occur, of course, at the limits of the drawn areas, to which the graphite is applied, where these & the unadulterated paper meet whilst retaining their distinct separateness), of touchings, of not-quite-complete-meetings, of gaps, slippages, spaces between (such as those separating 'art' & 'life', of course, which Robert Rauschenberg, for instance, felt it fruitful to explore & in which to operate).

Additionally irresistible were the 'art-historical' reminders of numerous portraits & figure compositions upon black grounds & also, particularly, e.g. certain paintings of the great Spanish still life tradition by such artists as Cotan, & Zurbaran as illustrated, where the objects are depicted against or emerging from, & contrasting starkly against, seemingly limitless bituminous black depths.


Francisco de Zurbaran 'Still Life with Pottery Jars'
oil on canvas/c. 1630s

Having given itself up to the drawing process, there seemed a poignancy attached to the pencil, eroded to a barely pick-uppable stub (suffering, indeed, for one's art, such was the awkwardness of the act of attempting to hold & make marks with such a worn-down & whittled-away - processes again - tool), particularly observed in close physical relation to the drawing (note, too, the reflection of the camera's flash upon the graphite surface, some indication at least & at last of the physical nature of its satiny finish)...



One can feel, palpably, a Project drawing to a close..!

Soundtrack:


The (Elvis) Costello Show 'King of America'
Low 'Things We Lost in the Fire'
Radiohead 'Kid A'