Gaps, Margins and Spare Bits

Gaps, Margins and Spare Bits

2018

10mtr paper roll, perspex box, A4 300gsm watercolour paper, texta. dimensions variable

In this work, I have rejected the traditional modes of drawing, where the drawing is usually perceived as an activity taking place after the initial fact; an echo of that which it trying to describe. I have returned to a style of drawing I have done since I was a child. The work is a restless line: a drawing that emerges in the absence of object. This drawing draws rather than gets drawn.

The drawing is not ruled by the demands of the observable or imaginary world. Instead, it is a drawing that is performed, in order to contemplate the terms of its own nature.

At the beginning of this work I was in a bout of depression. The expectations of making work and my spiritual life collided, and the fact I couldn’t clean my bathroom became the sum of my spiritual wealth. In desperation, I began to walk and meditate to try to become free from the bondage of self. I also decided to return to drawing again. I purchased a 10-meter roll of paper and began, along with disciplines of walking and meditation to draw myself out of depression through the repetitive action of drawing lines.

The work is a reflection of my own obsessive nature. It’s a physiological landscape that took place in a daily practice over four months. Within the series of grids and patterns, I became aware of the drawing’s background and foreground, both literally and mentally. The random actions have become unified – the drawing and the interaction of the practice seem to take turns at being present. In this duality, I have found many intersections between obsessive thought and space.