Drawing Under the Influence...

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm

A drawing made directly under the influence of the recently mentioned ‘The Primacy of Drawing’, & more specifically the serendipitous illustrated reference to the work of Vija Celmins contained therein.


Now, mention of Celmins’ exquisite, labour-intensive graphite still life drawings of almost-flat objects (postcards, fragments of magazine pages featuring reproduced photographs, envelopes) & various natural surfaces (desert- & moonscapes, etc) has occurred hereabouts on previous occasions, again in direct relation to the ‘roadkill’ & road surface series of drawings (indeed, here at the very outset of such), as a most relevant example for the contextualization of.

Here, the piece of paper featuring image content as represented in the Celmins drawing bears, it occurred, a relation to my habitual practice of making a photocopy of any found ‘roadkill’ object as the initial stage of the record-keeping & representational process, which, it also occurred, in an epiphanic moment, could itself provide the subject/object matter for a drawing, which, thus inspired & without further ado (in the best traditions), proceeded accordingly.

Folding & lightly crumpling the piece of paper (edited down from the original A4 sheet) produced a suitably low relief ‘three dimensional’ object which, its surface described by natural light, provided an incident-rich source of subtle tonal variations existing in relational dialogue to the familiar image of a flattened, crumpled ‘roadkill’ can printed upon it.

Note also that the folding process resulted in the formation of an eight-celled grid, a further connection with abiding concerns, & which directly influenced the drawing process, which was largely carried out cell-by-cell with a few overall finishing revisions.

Also in relation to previous considerations (particularly as relating to the 2008 drawing Project concerned with the transcription of newspaper photographs), such a drawing features multiple levels of representation & again, by way more of serendipitous coincidence than anything else, there’s a correspondence with the early summer photographs of uncrumpled paper balls, returned to sheet form & subsequently having rudimentary grids drawn upon them: a sequence of many pleasing connections that might inspire & enable further exploratory dialogues...

There's also, from a theoretical viewpoint, something of a recurrence of Michael Bracewell's niggling notion of 'the dense aesthetic values of re-mediation' (coined in relation to Richard Forster's compelling series of drawings, richly processed from his own original photographic sources, of the sea), which surely begs a more profound investigation, particularly in the light of little else in the way of consideration being published, at least, on the subject of what seems an important concept.