drawing paper 1
DESCRIPTION
Drawing Paper is an independently published, freely distributed newspaper based gallery concerned with contemporary drawing practice. Issue 1 features work from 20 UK based artists including Jon Barraclough, Mike Carney, Baptiste Croze, Jemma Egan, Henry Finney, Madeline Hall, Natalie Hughes, Harry Lawson, Sarah McKevitt, Hamish McLain, Flis Mitchell, Bernadette O'Toole, Richard Proffitt, James Quin, Laura Robertson, Emily Speed, Topia Gould, Sam Venables, Alan Williams, Alexandra Wolkowicz and Ki Yoong. Designed and curated by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough, Liverpool UK.TRANSCRIPT
DRAWINGPAPER
#1
AN INTRODUCTION
I began thinking about producing a drawingfocussed publication several months ago duringa particularly productive period of makingmy own work and seeing others around meworking on their own interesting drawings. I considered how it would be possible to curate a diverse selection of drawings from amongstmy talented network of creative friends and acquaintances.
The work in this first issue is not a responseto any particular theme, they are more likesnapshots into each artists current practicesand interests. For some of the contributors,drawing is their sole focus and obsession,others produce drawings as a starting pointor even a distraction from their usual workingpractice. Many of the drawings challenge theidea ‘what is a drawing?’ We have examples of collage, digital and three dimensional /sculptural based works, alongside moretraditional pencil on paper based drawings.
When does a drawing become something else?Should we be constrained by conventionalapproaches like medium and format? I thinkfor myself and many others it’s all about theimmediacy. Drawing can be a free flowingand direct way of expressing ourselves andideas, whether they are conceptual, figurativeor abstract, or self-indulgent, tangentialdetours or excursions.
DRAWING CONVERSATIONS
In DELUGE 2611091712 (opposite) adrawing was created simultaneously by threeartists, ( Jon Barraclough, Mike Carney andAlexandra Wolkowicz) onto a large sheet ofpaper taped to a table that can be accessedfrom all sides. This way it’s possible to swapplaces and to see the image in differentorientations and to work over and onto eachother’s marks. The theme DELUGE was inresponse to the diabolical weather outsideand to a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci ofthe same name.
I’m interested in the authorship and ownershipof creativity. Or rather, I’m interested in howwe might break down ideas of singular creationand possession of works of art. Drawing offersa primary, stripped down practice that we are all capable of in some form or other. I’verecently been having drawing conversationswith others in an attempt to explore what it is to collaborate in an intimate space: spacethat also reveals process and producesevidence, or artefact as an outcome. Spokenconversations can be recorded and playedback but knowing that a recording is beingmade often effects what we say and how werespond. Authorship of the spoken word ismostly indisputable – in law this can mean thedifference between freedom or imprisonment.A combined drawing activity can eitherreveal or obscure an original mark or gesture.In parallel with music in ensemble, drawingcan fuse together marks, lines, phrases andtextures into a combined experience. It canbe predetermined or improvisational. Theresult is unrepeatable and living process inrelationship is revealed.
Jon Barraclough
I don’t profess to be an authority on drawing;I see myself as facilitator and initiatorpossessing the skills to present the contentprofessionally. Of course I have opinions and preferences but on the theoretical side I will leave you in the capable hands of mycontributors and associates. In this issue Jon Barraclough provides us with aninteresting text looking at collaborative‘drawing conversations’.
I would like the paper to act as a catalyst – on a local level here in Liverpool at least –in establishing a collective of artists whostart running their own drawing basedprojects and activities.
I hope Drawing Paper inspires you to getinvolved. In future issues I would like to inviteothers to lead on curating, establishing themesand providing written responses. If you haveany suggestions or comments, please get intouch and be sure to checkout the website for more information.
Enjoy.
Mike Carney.
Drawing Paper is a freely distributed, not forprofit publication. It is funded and made possiblesolely by its contributors. Here’s the deal – eachartist pays an equal amount for their page whichin total covers the production costs. With thismodel it is possible to be liberated from thetedious rigours of funding applications andcriteria guidelines, enabling us to do things onour own terms – Drawing Paper is a logo andadvert free zone.
Sincere thanks to all contributors for your support,encouragement and enthusiasm.
Special thanks to Jon Barraclough for yourinput and inspiration.
All artworks copyright © The Artists.Published in May 2010.
Conceived and designed in Liverpool, UK by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough.
www.mikesstudio.co.ukwww.jonbarraclough.co.uk
Printed in a limited edition of 3000 by Sharman and Company, Peterborough.
www.drawing-paper.tumblr.com
JON BARRACLOUGH, MIKE CARNEY, ALEXANDRA WOLKOWICZ Drawing Conversation 3 DELUGE: 2611091712 AW JB MC. (1150 x 875mm). Pencil and graphite stick. 2009
TOPIA GOULD Untitled. (300 x 400mm). Mixed pens and pencils on paper. 2010
SARAH MCKEVITT A Place To Hide. (297 x 420mm). Pencil on paper. 2010
LAURA ROBERTSON Fig. 1. (297 x 420mm). Pen, pencil, photocopy, highlighter. 2010
EMILY SPEED Shelter. (400mm tall). Plasticine and ink, pencil and acrylic on card. 2010
MADELINE HALLLEFT Untitled. (220 x 120mm). Mixed media on wood. 2010rIGHT Untitled. (210 x 297mm). Mixed media on paper. 2010
HAMISH MCLAIN It’s got to be Fresh. (420 x 297mm). Oil on paper. 2009
BERNADETTE O’TOOLE Folding Space Like Paper. (Dimensions variable). Pen on paper. 2009
NATALIE HUGHES 24.006. (198 x 170mm). Collage. 2010
HARRY LAWSON Thought Experiment (Stonehenge). Photoshop. 2010
MIKE CARNEY Untitled. (216 x 239mm). Brown ink pen onto found board. 2009
RICHARD PROFFITT Untitled (Excerpt from “Stadt Moers 1996”). (210 x 297mm). Photocopy. 2010
HENRY FINNEY rIGHT Roundabouts. (210 x 250mm). Acrylic and charcoal on board. 2010 BELOW Swings. (277 x 210mm). Acrylic and charcoal on board. 2010
JAMES QUIN The Watched Cannot see the Watcher. (130 x 200mm). Graphite on found book back. (First edition readers digest). 2010
JEMMA EGAN Mr Wonder Dog. (180 x 210mm). Swiss-made coloured pencil on red Swiss chocolate wrapper. 2009
BAPTISTE CROZE You’ll Never Walk Alone (preliminary drawings). (Dimensions variable). Blue and grey graphite transfers. 2010
FLIS MITCHELL Jaws 2 ReDrawn. (Dimensions variable). Pencil on paper. 2010
SAM VENABLES Gibo. (297 x 420mm). Collage, ink, pencil. 2010
ALAN WILLIAMS people make me sick. (297 x 210mm). Ink and tea on paper. 2010
JON BARRACLOUGH CATBIRD. (450 x 300mm). Drawn onto photograph. 2009
JON BARRACLOUGH“CATBIRD is a drawn-onto photograph that wastaken in New York City. This Catbird had beencollected after a bird-building collision duringmigration. I’ve always felt that photographs canseem ‘frozen’ in time. I’d been doing quite abstractdrawings from an idea that depicts bird collisionswith windows in city buildings. This is an attemptto bring to life the drama of such a collisionusing marks that could animate the moment; to add depth and movement to the image. The photo is from a collaborative projectwith Alexandra Wolkowicz.”
Jon Barraclough studied Fine Art Media atBradford and Graphic Art at Newcastle beforeworking as a photographer and designer in NewYork and London in the 1980s. Working in themusic, film and fashion industries, he was afounder member of the Unknown Studio inLondon, UK and exhibited drawings in groupand solo shows there. He began teaching atNewcastle and Liverpool Schools of Art in the early 90s then became Head of School atLiverpool between 1991 and 1996. He went onto become Creative Director at Nonconform avisual communications consultancy in Liverpooland has exhibited drawings, paintings, film andphotography in touring group shows and soloshows in the UK. In 2008 he became a researchAssociate at Liverpool School of Art andestablished Jon Barraclough and Company, a collaborative arts and consulting practicebased in Liverpool.
www.jonbarraclough.co.uk
MIKE CARNEY“When I produce a drawing I embark on a sortof meditative journey – a focussed process out ofwhich something emerges out of nothing. I haveno pre-conceived idea about what the final formmight be. I just establish some simple rules andcons traints – the type of pen, colour of ink, thesize and direction of the marks – and the rest isleft to chance. The resulting intricate forms have a meandering, rhythmic and organic quality which I enjoy.”
Mike is a Liverpool based graphic designer andartist, lover of repetitive beats and studio memberof The royal Standard. recent exhibitionsinclude the group show DRAWN IN at The Lost Soul and Stranger Service Station projectspace, Liverpool, May 2009.
www.mikesstudio.co.uk
BAPTISTE CROZE“ You’ll Never Walk Alone is a project based onphotos collected from the internet for my researchinto Liverpool football supporters tatoo’s. Thedrawings have been transfered onto paper usinggraphite paper; I wanted to isolate them and placeemphasis on the tatoo designs. These preliminaryideas will inform further drawings that I will becarving into a white cube, creating a ‘LiverpoolWhite Cube’.”
JEMMA EGANSwiss, Swissness, Swissishness, Chocolate,Cheese, Dogs, Perfect, Kitsch, Fake, Blue,Swiss-made, Stationary, Swiss, Mountains,Dogs, Mountain dogs, Chocolate dogs,Chocolate, Cheese, Chocolate, Mountains,Swiss-made, Chocolate, Swissed.
www.jemmaegan.com
HENRY FINNEYFor Henry Finney the simple act of drawing iswhat makes it so liberating. The places portrayedin his work have taken inspiration from a varietyof sources like everyday observations, memory,cinematography and music. The amount ofenergy that someone can put into a picture withsuch simple tools is what also inspires him tokeep his work lucid.
“I didn’t mean tha’, he said. It’s not the fact tha’ theywent to fuckin’ art school that’s wrong with them.It’s – ( Jimmy was struggling.) – more to do with –(now he had something.) – the way their stuff, theirsongs like, are aimed at gits like themselves. Wankerswith funny haircuts. An’ rich das. An’ fuck all else todo all day ‘cept prikin’ around with synths.”
roddy Doyle, The Commitments
MADELINE HALL“The main body of my work at present exploresnarrative and the way time, memories and eventsare processed and represented. I have developeda visual language which often springs fromunexpected encounters and random trains of thought.
Whilst approaching the drawings with a certainamount of abandonment, I also try to constructa dialogue with the viewer through the use ofjuxtaposition of imagery taken from differentsources and time periods, suggesting the senseof the passage of time. Some of the material usedin the drawings, including images of architectureand objects, are appropriated from old magazines,books and catalogues, some of which date backto the 1930s. The presentation of the work, whichis normally in a series, enhances the theme ofnarrative, hinting at a sequence of events for theviewer to untangle. Ultimately, I strive to produceenigmatic landscapes that blur the lines betweenreal and imaginary; past and present; andintuition and reason.
I am currently based in Liverpool and have astudio space at The royal Standard, an artist ledgallery, project space and social workspace.”
NATALIE HUGHES‘So it goes’ (Kurt Vonnegut)‘If the accident will ’ (Kurt Vonnegut)‘I paint what I can’t paint and say what I can’t say...’(Paul rotterdam)
“Drawing is a way of bringing the real and theimaginary together, in doing so new conclusionscan be made about the way we see things.
My work, which comprises of drawing and stop-start animation, explores the notion of a privateworld. A world that floats between the real andthe surreal, something which can be so vivid andclear, yet in real-terms, nothing at all.”
HARRY LAWSON“It has always been interesting to me to try and imagine something that has never happenedand probably will never happen. Much like awild animal, some things may not be possible for a human to understand; there may be a logicmore fundamental than maths, physics, religion,astrology, whatever. When considering what it might look like if gravity was to suddenlyreverse it is difficult to know whether matteritself would break up initially; if matters masswas to become negative, perhaps the Universe or Multiverse would instantly become awashwith the most fundamental objects and enter a truly steady state.”
‘This Matter’ opens at The royal Standard,Liverpool on 21 May 2010.
www. thismatterblog.blogspot.com
SARAH MCKEVITT“My drawing represents winter days for thelonely with white skys and dull surroundings.The main inspiration for my work is music,lyrics, and the magical way in which they canchange moods and atmospheres. The musicalinspiration behind this particular drawing is A Place To Hide by The White Lies.
Sarah Mckevitt is a Graphic Arts Illustrationstudent at Salford University. Previous exhibitionwork include collaborative artworks at Font Bar,Oxford road, Manchester and Afflecks Palace,Northern Quarter Manchester.
HAMISH MCLAIN“Drawing is funny for me. Sometimes I knowexactly when I’m doing a drawing, and othertimes it feels more like I’m making a painting.Drawing is to do with a directness, an almostno-going-back state, whereas painting is moreabout going backwards and forwards in trying to resolve the piece. It doesn’t have to be done in pencil or charcoal to be a drawing – it’s moreabout how you use the material and your state of mind when making the marks.”
Hamish McLain is an artist based in Liverpool.He has a studio at The royal Standard where hewas a co-director for two years. Earlier this yearhe exhibited as part of the BamBamBam series of solo shows at The royal Standard. In April /May this year he initiated a four person show‘Thinking Outside the Box’ as part of Global Studioat The Bluecoat, Liverpool. Engaging with themesof place and experience, the artists exploredconnections between working methods, in video,text, sculpture, painting and photography.
Previous exhibitions include: Shifting Perspectives,Cloisters, London, April 2009. Pencil It In, redWire, May Liverpool 2009. Fear and Optimism:Liverpool in the 21st Century, Workstation,February, Sheffield 2009.
www.hamishmclain.com
FLIS MITCHELL“The Jaws 2 ReDrawn project is an explorationof the differences between the processes of fineart drawing and main stream film making. I ammaking a drawing based on each frame of the7000 frames from the Jaws 2 theatrical trailer.I can dispense with continuity and superfluousimagery and create a drawing that extracts newmeaning from each frame. The new drawingswill be animated and united with the originalsoundtrack to produce a short drawn animationthat reveals the latent narrative within Jaws 2.The project will be completed when I have re-drawn the complete Jaws 2 film. I welcome peoplecontacting me to discuss the project or drawingin general.”
BERNADETTE O’TOOLEBernadette O’Toole takes the line as her startingpoint, line as a prime conceptualisation, describingnothing in itself other than the space betweentwo points and the time it takes to travel from A to B, to create sheets of time, folding the paperin such a way as to house moments that cannotbe measured.
Bernadette’s most recent drawing installation‘Folding Space like Paper’ suggests a dystopianlandscape edging towards its own destruction.Constructed from A4 sheets of paper (or ‘paperplanes’ as O’Toole describes them), covered inmeticulously drawn lines that form themselvesinto hermetically sealed structures, hinting at a minimal architecture and sliding off into what appears to be a desert wasteland.
What is striking about this landscape is itsuniformity; a grey blanket of constructedpossibilities spreads out over the floor of thegallery. These sealed structures that offer no way in or out have in places been trampledunderfoot without a thought. O’Toole drawsattention to the fragility of our constructs, to the impermanence of things.
Bernadette O’Toole has a studio at the BluecoatLiverpool where she is currently showing a seriesof new paintings in the Global Studio exhibitioninspired by her most recent drawing installations.In May 2009 O’Toole curated DRAWN IN, anexhibition exploring the possibilities of drawingtoday, shown at The Lost Soul and StrangerService Station project space. Bernadette iscurrently working towards DRAWN IN TWOto be held at the same venue later this year.
Her most frequently listened to piece of music is Shostakovich piano concerto No. 2 in F Major.
RICHARD PROFFITTAncient civilisations, the American undergroundand slacker culture, ghost-towns, urban mythsand legends, folklore, Krautrock music of the1960s and 70s, post-apocalyptic sci-fi films,second hand occult imagery, mined memories of half-arsed childhood den making, suburbanwasteland and classroom humour. These elementsbecome intertwined and mangled, producingwork that is sometimes absurd, funny, dark ormysterious. The work will often become realisedas make-shift ceremonial relics and ephemera or ramshackle ritualistic hang-outs.
JAMES QUINJames Quin’s drawing The Watched Cannot see theWatcher is the preliminary drawing for a series of300 drawings on found book backs entitledRepetition currently showing in the Global Studioexhibition at the Bluecoat gallery, Liverpool.
Each drawing is made from memory based onthe previous drawing, the process repeated 300times over a nine month period. The processseeks through the act of repetition to uncover‘the multiple readings’ of the image and to makevisible the subjectivity of memory and the markingof time. The variations / flaws of the image, act as tiny glitches in the attempt to remember.
“In the act of drawing there is a kind of necessaryamnesia. One looks at the subject, studies itintently for a few moments, remembers a particularset of relationships for a split second, and transfersthat memory of seeing, remembering, forgetting.repeat. See. remember. Forget. Erase. repeat.See. remember. Forget. Erase. Alter. repeat”.
James Quin has a studio at the Bluecoat and iscurrently Associate lecturer at Leeds College ofArt and Design. Quin has exhibited nationallyand internationally and has been shortlisted forthe Liverpool Art Prize 2010 and nominated for the Northern Art Prize 2010.
His favourite film is Tarkovsky’s Solaris.
LAURA ROBERTSONThe long Shrine of hunger. Window spectra Bleak on the retina. It is the hunger Humbles the eye-beam. The slime’s Great Orme. Stranded, immense Mollusk! A carapace of stone, cruciform, Sculpted, as are all God’s creatures, by hunger.
Extract from Wolfwatching by Ted Hughes
Selected recent shows include: All Change,rogue Artists Studios, Manchester, June 2009; SALE, The royal Standard, Liverpool, January2009; Artists Book Fair Liverpool, WolstenholmeProjects, Liverpool, November 2008.
EMILY SPEEDEmily Speed’s work is an ongoing explorationinto the relationships between architecture andhuman anatomy: the body as a building thathouses the mind. Particularly drawn to the moreuninhabited spaces of buildings; corners, recesses,passageways, stairways, entrances and exits, Speedconstructs models of sorts; a kind of immaterialarchitecture that plots out her personal space.Her work is also concerned with the enduringsense of memory and / or personal identity that is often embedded into built space.
Emily is currently the Feiweles Trust bursaryholder at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where shewill exhibit her work in 2011 for her first soloexhibition, she will also exhibit this autumn atShowreel Project in Milan. Emily has recentlytaken part in the A Curriculum residency at A Foundation in Liverpool and has alsocompleted residencies at Salzamt Atelierhaus,Linz with Liverpool Biennial, Women’s StudioWorkshop, New York State and HospitalfieldTrust, Arbroath.
www.emilyspeed.co.uk
TOPIA GOULDroxy Topia and Paddy Gould are collaborativeartists based in the North West. Their currentseries of drawings is creating optimistic andhumorous images from the joy they take in eachother’s bodies. Pattern, colour and surface areimportant to their visual language. These drawingsarose from ideas contained within the seriesLovers Collages made on their recent residencyin Linz, Austria, where they also made a sculpture,a video and a text based poster that formed a bodyof work preoccupied with therapeutic possibilitiesfor art. In it, figures from the European shamanictradition found themselves amongst Americanpopular culture and a British sense of humour.Sometimes in their spare time they like to workwith friends on small participatory events thatare invite only or confusingly participatory. Theytend to find reductive, conceptual art practicesrather boring and would prefer to enjoy an icecream sundae. What a beautiful approach toform! They are about to go to LA to make somefun art and hang out with psychologists.
[email protected]@hotmail.co.ukwww.topiagould.wordpress.com
SAM VENABLESLiverpool based Artist Sam Venables providesan A to Z of Highlights and Lowlights.
HIGHASDA, Bowie in Labyrinth, Blimps and BadStyle, Claes Oldenburg, Devo’d, Eine, Fishingfor Crabs, Gold Teeth and Gibsonism, HenryHoover, Ian Stevenson, Junk Stores, Krimskramsand Krang, ]y results Time, Motorcycles andMS Paint, Nineties Dashboards, Overheard inLiverpool, Patrick Brill and The Peter AndreFan Club circa.1996, Queequeg, rotisserieChicken, Scalsploitation, Styling Mouse andSmithereens, The royal Standarians, UrbanDictionary, Vauxhall Astra Owners Club, WayneSzalinski, Ya’ll, Zaam and Zahne.
LOWA Buck Fifty, Bean burgers, CBA, DunhelmMill, Ear pieces for Mobile Phones, Five o One,Girls wearing hair curlers in town, Home Alone3, Interform, Jeggins, Krunk Juice, Lucky LuckyTats, Melon, New Builds, Old Tents, Paramore,QVC craft with Dawn Bibby, reef that tastes likeChicken, Strawberry flavoured anything andSpliffy Jackets, Taco Bell, Use of the word Sozzled,Vemps, Wayne Wonder, X and Y, Zoom on me Nokia.
www.sam-venables.com
ALAN WILLIAMS“I’m an artist based in liverpool, but I’m gettingold and lazy so I mostly just draw these days. Ienjoy making and listening to music and I generallydon’t enjoy people.”
www.alan-williams.co.uk
ALEXANDRA WOLKOWICZAlexandra Wolkowicz is a Polish / Germanphotographer and artist currently resident inLiverpool UK. Her work explores themes aboutour relationship with the world and how weshare it with each other and other living things.Essentially tactile and documentary, her worksprings from her experience with photography,performance, theatre and the creation of uniquerepresentations of places, things and historieswhich move her. She works with still and movingimagery often with the addition of sound. Herintervention with things and situations found is to alter, adjust and reconstruct the familiar inorder to create moving, thought-provoking andpoetic representations. Her working practice isoften collaborative and multidisciplinary choosingto select media appropriate to the aesthetics andcontent of a particular piece. She has travelledwidely and has worked with artists and inresidencies in Europe, North America and Asia.
www.studiowolkowicz.com
KI YOONGKi Yoong began scribbling long before he couldspell his name and tie his shoelaces. His work isexplicitly detailed, making it notable for itstraditional, realistic aesthetic. The obscurity ofhis dreams and confronting the uncertainty ofreality inspire him the most, providing him withever-changing, and evolving material.
It is evident in Yoong’s drawings that he isparticularly interested in the human face, everyperson he renders delicately shows a differentfacial expression, which evokes everything from frustration, to serenity and emptiness, to contentment. With little girls wearing skullsfor hats and old ladies befriending imaginarybears, his work is synonymous with ambiguous,personal humour, which he attributes to hiscynical nature and like-minded friends.
Ki is a Virgo. He enjoys long walks, warm summer nights, and looking at frog spawn.
KI YOONG Gomeisa. (590 x 300mm). Pencil on paper. 2010