Gritty (Photo)Realism

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

This particular drawing owes its existence to something of a ‘back to the future’ situation occurring as a result of a recent epiphany, whereby various strands of source material, creative thinking, research & visual influences & references might usefully be combined to service a potentially substantial drawing project.

The source image dates from November 2007, photographed then & posted under the title ‘Pop Art Roadkill’ coined to describe an aspect of its content which was/is additional to its ground, an extensive number of examples of which had been recorded as visual research prior to this.

This original material – my own photographs of a local phenomenon of ‘double black lines’ road markings (by way of brief explication, correctively over-painted double yellow lines erroneously applied) - & thoughts of using it as the basis for drawing & painting dates back some three years now (already), with numerous examples blogged & contextualized, primarily within the idiom of Modernist painting, in February & March of 2006. Subsequently, in the November of the following year, a small series of 'all-over' drawings was processed from a selection of these photographs, being an initial, exploratory foray into both the practice of working from pre-existing, ‘readymade’ images (habitually, then, being a long-standing stickler for working from life) & the mark-making possibilities that the particular source might offer, with especial reference to the example & influence of the drawings of Jasper Johns.

Shortly afterwards came the chancing-upon of the traffic-flattened aluminium drinks cans - ‘roadkill’ in the contemporary parlance - at the same roadsides as exhibited the double black line markings: duly recorded, posted & contextualized within the realm of visual art (Warhol & Johns providing primary examples) for further reference, as a development of the original theme.

And then began last year’s project of working from print media-derived photographic sources which has developed & held sway into this year & unto the present...

However, the idea of working from this body of source material never having been abandoned as such, & following on from the seeds of inspiration replanted by the recent discovery of Richard Forster’s series of seascape drawings (see this post), the particular catalyst in bringing all the various strands together has been the work of Vija Celmins, via the excellent, handsome Phaidon-published monograph on the artist & her career, recently purchased & in the process of being studied intensely for both its image content & the fascinating accompanying essays & interview transcriptions.

The visual analogies between, in particular, Celmins’ exquisite graphite drawings - displaying such richness of textural incident & subtlety of tonal control - of, variously, still lifes of enveloped letters & images torn from magazines ('almost-flat' objects, as are, of course, the compressed roadkill cans), & photo-derived expanses of oceans, star-scattered night skies, &, most pertinently, stony desert floors, & my source photographs of the tarmacked roadsides (with attendant discarded consumer 'roadkill' & without) are obvious, & compelling to such a degree that the hope is that the influence of Celmins' work, along with that of Forster & Johns, & such other painters as Robert Ryman, will prove suitably inspiring to instigate a profound exploration through drawing, mark-making, of my source material & any issues that might arise from such.

Returning to the drawing with which this post opens, an interesting aspect of its process was that much of the detail of the texture of the road surface was interpreted from the source photograph, being suggested & led not by direct reference to the image with the aim of faithful reproduction of its specific appearance - apart from a selection of positional markers & reference to general appearances - but, rather, the initial marks made upon the surface of the paper, building up, layer upon layer, to create the form of the drawing (as representation).

Soundtrack:


Black Box Recorder 'England Made Me'
Sundays 'Reading, Writing & Arithmetic'
Sparklehorse 'It's Wonderful Life'
Lambchop 'How I Quit Smoking' & 'What Another Man Spills'
Belle & Sebastian 'The Life Pursuit'

Coincidental to a couple of items on this list, a word in praise of BBC4's fascinating documentary 'Do It Yourself: the Story of Rough Trade Records' (upon which label both the Sundays' album & 'The Life Pursuit' were released): so much great, challenging music made available through various means to the world, from Scritti Politti, Cabaret Voltaire, Robert Wyatt to The Smiths, from noble, idealistic beginnings through various political & financial power struggles to bankruptcy to renaissance, utterly compelling & rather 'Proustian' too.
Featuring as it does so many of such bands & artists & those on similar, related labels of the era, I really must read Simon Reynolds' wonderful history of post-punk, 'Rip It Up and Start Again' too, especially as I seem to be particularly immersed in the sonic aesthetic of those times...

Drawn to the Sea...

Inspired by the artist's featuring in the March issue of Art Review as one of the magazine's 30 up-&-coming 'Future Greats', intriguingly & enthusiastically promoted in a text by Michael Bracewell, & a subsequent visit to see more examples of his work on the Ingleby Gallery website, it became necessary late last week to invest in the catalogue of the recent exhibition of Richard Forster's drawings held at that very venue.


The book itself is a handsome object, an exquisitely designed & produced slim volume, bound in linen &, within, a poetic essay by the same Michael Bracewell accompanying & interpreting, generally, over 40 of Richard Forster's seascape drawings, a pair of which are here reproduced as facing pages in the catalogue.



Even in reproduction, the drawings are compelling indeed, their appearance referencing their photographic origins in, for instance, their sometimes 'out of focus' nature & being, as Michael Bracewell notes, through the meticulously-detailed & -realised richness of their transcription, redolent of daguerreotypes, atmospheric & evocative: although made from recently-taken photographs by the artist himself, the drawings' appearance suggests their source as being temporally indeterminate (this also applies more locally & immediately to the time of day they communicate or complicate, which might be any- &/or everything from dawn to dusk). In a very interesting term - to one whose practice over the last year & more, drawing from 'readymade' photographic sources, has been concerned with such a fundamental issue of process - Bracewell states that Forster's drawings "own the dense aesthetic values of re-mediation" (my emphasis): one to consider & research in greater depth (N.B. the term appears to have been used primarily regarding the new digital media & its relation to older ones, but, reversing the process seems an equally valid & fruitful area of exploration).

Inevitably with the subject, Richard Forster's seascapes reference the Romantic & notions of the sublime: one contemplates the wonder of the endless, timeless ebb & flow of the waves, which also suggests the process of drawing, the mark-making, additions & erasures. The drawings are beautiful, their tones subtly, expertly modulated, their individual details described with great care & attention that yet transcends technique: Bracewell suggests that Forster's achievement is twofold, artistic & philosophical, a fitting tribute to such compelling drawings in the form of a sustained & ultimately substantial body of work (completed between the spring & autumn of 2008).

One particularly interesting & profound aspect of the drawings is their invariable depiction of that point at which the sea meets the land in a foamy tracery of lace-like forms, with waves & the horizon receding beyond, that edge between the elements of water & earth: this having reminded me of those photographs taken some time ago now of the local double black line road markings from which I had intended & indeed begun to process drawings &, perhaps, paintings & to which it might be fruitful to return, to reconsider & re-engage with...