Rescued from its resting place on the floor in the room where it was found, the Hoop was then placed, for safe-keeping & some vague, unformed possibility for further use/study, upon a piece of A4 paper, not blank but, rather, a 'blank' photocopy that has recorded no image other than the pattern of marks upon the inside of the lid of the machine during the copying process, a 'found drawing' (within the environment of the daily workplace) of the like that was presented here at TOoT, coincidentally around this time last year.
Subsequently, over a period of days, & subject to slight inadvertent shifts in its position within its 'safe place' (on the horizontal), this potato-based manufactured object was discovered to have left a series of greasy marks upon &, indeed, through the sheet of paper, creating a collection of darker-toned shapes thus, photographed with the Hula Hoop now purposely positioned upon, composed within, the 'picture plane', as might be observed from a couple of angles, the first from a horizontal approach...
& then from more directly overhead...
Observed in close up, the grease marks can be seen in the context of the overall composition of the network of subtle, regularly-spaced dots upon the surface of the sheet of paper & the bolder horizontal line bisecting them that form the photocopied & printed elements of the 'drawing', with the Hula Hoop object itself adding a sculptural dimension to the whole & casting shadows that add darker-toned forms which relate to the marks of the grease stains, although the former of course are fugitive, their existence & precise position at any point dependent upon the prevailing light source(s) & the viewer's physical relation to the 'work'/'drawing'/object...
As is habitual, a context for such a '(sculptural) drawing' suggested itself, in the form of a particular(ly intriguing & unusual) painting of Euan Uglow's, with its self-explanatory title, which (re)presents as its subject matter similar oily marks/sweat stains as have occurred as the result of a body resting in a particular position upon a horizontal plane...
Euan Uglow 'Still Life With Model Marks' 1971-72
oil on canvas on panel/16" x 40"
The context & reason for such marks having been made/left might then be observed in Uglow's contemporaneously companion 'Summer Picture', where the position of the human model & the points at which her body comes into contact with the horizontal surface upon which she rests clearly relate to the painting featuring the marks:
Euan Uglow 'Summer Picture' 1971-72
oil on canvas/43" x 43 1/2"
It's very interesting & inspiring to be able to read, within 'The Complete Paintings' (an essential reference resource & treasured volume of the research-&-development library), Uglow's comments as reported, of his appreciation of the beauty of the empty table & the marks upon its surface, contemplated, studied closely ('stared at for hours') after the model had departed sessions, & of such being "one of the reasons for wanting to paint something".
Another, later painting of Uglow's similarly features the evidence of departed bodies/objects (although in this particular instance, the marks made are more lightly toned than the horizontal surface upon which they were once at rest), in this small-scale still life, its title again self-explanatory:
Euan Uglow 'Two Others Have Been There' 1992
oil on board/7 1/4" x 7"
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