graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
source: B&W p/copy of 4th generation colour p/copy of original newspaper photograph from 'The Guardian' 27/11/08
At last, over 2 weeks into the new year, a new-old drawing, being, in the absence of any great illuminating flashes of inspiration, a development of last year’s photographically-derived Project rather than anything radically different, this in keeping with the overarching concern with process as subject.
In the interests of creating a degree of aesthetic distance from the outset, the original newspaper image (such still providing the source, from last year’s archive-backlog) in this instance has been subject initially to a degree of surface erasure & then to various stages of photocopied reproduction, with each copy subsequently serving as the ‘original’ for the next, thus resulting in a process of degradation of the quality of the image from step to step, creating (through this act of partial, cumulative destruction), ultimately, a somewhat ‘distressed’ new ‘original’ from which to draw.
With the drawing attempting to remain faithful to the tonal appearance of its model, the result takes on a faded, indistinct appearance, where particular detail & any sense of clarity are lost, similar, perhaps, to the paintings of Luc Tuymans, an artist who also allows himself to become in some way distanced from the photographic sources from which he works, through various processes both technical – e.g. making watercolour sketches as a transitional object - & temporal (the point at which an image becomes so familiar, so banal, as to lose its meaning & thus liberated for purposes of transcription & representation).
These reproductions from the exhibition catalogue ‘The Painting of Modern Life’ (of photographically-derived work & as previously mentioned at the very beginning of last year’s drawing Project) illustrate the familiar appearance of Tuyman’s paintings, with the first also serving as a coincidental reference to late-last-year’s drawing of the Mumbai terror atrocity suspects, an example of a number of drawings processed from originals of less-than-perfect quality (cf. also the Baader-Meinhof one).
Luc Tuymans 'Prisoners of War'
oil on canvas/2001
Luc Tuymans 'Passenger'
oil on canvas/2001
It’s also possible, of course, to alter the quality of the reproduction of the finished drawing itself through the application of a different, less subtle, higher contrast scan setting (in fact the software programme’s default option)...
Whilst on the subject of photography (as always-being-the-basis-of, of course), The Guardian last week published this wonderful image, considered by Michael Nyman to be his 'best shot': the main attraction being, naturally, the grid format of the composite image, itself featuring a selection of a larger sequence.
Michael Nyman
Soundtrack:
The Triffids 'Born Sandy Devotional' & 'The Black Swan'
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'The Boatman's Call'
Cocteau Twins homemade compilation of 'bric-a-brac'
Neil Young 'After the Gold Rush'
The Associates 'Fourth Drawer Down' & 'Sulk'
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