Invisible Lines: Drawing the Delicate

About the Project

The project seeks to examine relationships between investigative procedures in sciences of conservation, archaeology and medicine and the experimental tools and ideas of Art. It centres on the exploratory and analytical activity of drawing, where overlapping concerns can be found, specifically in the researcher’s shared engagement with fugitive or delicate material. The project responds to recent concerns voiced over the introspective character of much contemporary drawing research (Garner 2008) and its interdisciplinary approach falls in stark opposition to the conventional understanding of drawing as a secretive, private, studio-centred dialogue between artist and page. Rather than simply asking that increasingly hackneyed question: “what is drawing?”, it interrogates the activities of researchers who share values with a particular form of studio practice (one concerned with damage, contact, delicacy, sensitivity, traces) to ask “what might drawing share?”. The development of forms of documentation which are rare, yet necessary, to enable critical debate (through raising awareness of studio decision-making in relation to the processes of other fields), aims to test a transferable model for cross-discipline knowledge exchange.

Garner, S. 'Towards a Critical Discourse in Drawing Research' in S. Garner (ed.) Writing On Drawing: Essays on Drawing Practice and Research, Bristol: Intellect, 2008, pp 15- 26.

Saturday, 27 March 2010

Kensington Nights

Drawings in progress from studies of Queen Alexandra's night garments. Kept in the dark, brought out into the light only occasionally.

These drawings are made with grease, seeping into the paper, leaving a web like trace of garments, allowing the light to penetrate, making the drawing visible.

One unsettling question arises, will grease serve to preserve or decay the paper? And what will it look like as it ages? It is revealed by light, but may this also eventiually destroy and obliterate the image?

Grease on paper, 40x50 cm

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Musing on Hegel...

"Light as such is invisible, in that nothing may be seen in it, pure light resembles pure darkess, it is obscure and tenebrous. If we see in pure light then we are pure vision, but we do not as yet see anything... Light only manifests itself as such after it has differentiated itself as light by distinguishing itself from shade".

Hegel, Philosophy of Nature