Shadowlands by Drawing_Correspondence_Program

8th January - 9th February 2024

Shadowlands

Drawing Correspondence was founded in January 2021 by artists/educators Chloe Briggs, Tania Kovats and Anita Taylor as a response and contribution to a growing engagement with and sharing of drawing practice online. It is a structure that takes many forms and is designed to support participants at any stage of their practice in and through drawing. It is a way of forging connections and expanding a drawing community beyond institutions and physical space. Many thanks to: Matthew Avignone, Caroline Burraway, Simon Hitchens

10 10 Stephen Jon Cooper Lisa Fenton O’Brien

Flore Gardner Julieann Worrall Hood Debbie Loane Jilly Morris Phyllida Shelley Katie Sollohub Ingeborg Storbæk Caroline Wendling

With a letter from: Chloe Briggs Tania Kovats Anita Taylor

From left to right (top row):

Jilly Morris (On a dance floor, Chiang Mai), Phyllida Shelley (Cookham), Katie Sollohub (Shoreha

(Bottom row): Caroline Wendling (Cambridge), Lisa Fenton O’Brien (Shieldaig), Flore Gardner (Ed

am by Sea), Julieann Worrall Hood (Vale of Pewsey), Ingeborg Storbæk (Løten, Norway)

dinburgh), Stephen Jon Cooper (Nottingham), Debbie Loane (Easingwold)

A note to our shadows. In the myth of the first drawing Pliny’s daughter takes a coal from the fire and draws around the shadow of her sleeping lover, who is going to depart the following morning. The first drawing is made, an act of love, loss and longing in the shadows. Drawing has always been an energetic dance between light and dark. Together we have spent the last few weeks in the shadowlands, collecting shadows from the spaces we live in; spending time reflecting on those that live in the margins or peripheries; thinking about life below ground or the night sky. The shadows of winter are long, with the planetary arc of light swinging low on the horizon. This dark time of the year means more time spent with the stars, or retreating into our caves, our faces lit by our screens, a hibernation with what we need to blanket ourselves against the storms. The participants of the Shadowlands program have been celebrating and playing in the shadows. They have dragged themselves out of their caves to draw the storm or have allowed themselves to become entangled with bare boned January hedgerows. They have sat outside in the dark to draw with the full moon and scudding clouds. Their drawings have reached out and into something deeper. Sometimes these drawings are nebulous, trying to catch the space of darkness itself; sometimes it is the infinite net that becomes the subject of the drawing. A golden line of light, maybe first light or last light might cut through a cloaked drawing, or moonlight might gently shape the imprint of the drawing made in the snow. We can travel into the shadows with drawings, delicately describing a way into the dark interiors of our bodies, or we can cover our one-person sized space capsule with dynamic marks and drawings before it transports us into solitary orbit. And there was moonmilk, a white creamy substance found in limestone caves, (or dripping from the moon), taking us all the way back to first drawings, with the finger flutings marks across the wall of the cave.

In the Walt Disney’s ‘Peter Pan’, the 1952 adaptation of JM Barrie’s novel, when we first meet Peter, he has lost his shadow and he is frantically looking for it. Luckily for him, Wendy has found it and kept it safe in a draw for him, until she can carefully reattach it by sewing it back onto the soles of Peter’s feet. Impossible to imagine not having a shadow and yet we often chose to ignore what we see in the shadows. The last few weeks have been a brave reattaching or stitching back on our shadows with each line, smudge, image, mark, sound, moving image, net and word. Grateful for this time sharing the interplay of light and dark in our collective shadowlands.

Drawing Correspondence

STEPHEN Letter to the Monkey Man You came to me in a dream. 51 Years ago, as I wavered on the cusp of ado-

lescence and adulthood. My memory of you and all that you showed me in the dream has remained so

powerful, that I can recall it at will. The dream

haunts me still and has felt particularly pertinent in times of transition

and intensity such as during this current experience of ‘Shadowlands’ In the dream, you were my guide between many shadows and the

moonlight, between

comedy and tragedy, and between life and death. The essence of the dream has coloured my creative life ever since. ‘Shadowlands’ has indeed plugged me straight back into that encounter with your world. Monkey Man, you are my Trickster.

Out of the shadows you have ever been my Witness. You have overseen every

transition. You draw me back to my true path. I have felt the sound of your breath on my neck when I do right. You are:

My Puck, keeping the child and the spirit of play alive.

My Pan, keeping me connected to the wild world, to fear and to courage. My Lover, to keep me embodied and in this physical world.

My Holy Fool, to keep me from complacency, to shock me out of habits. My Guardian Angel, who keeps me safe.

My Mentor, sending me precious people, who have shared their wisdom. You shall be my Pall Bearer when the time comes.

‘Indra’s Net’ (Cave Wall VII) detail of work in progress, Charcoal on Fabriano Paper, Full work 150 x 150cm.

North West Highlands, Scotland. The Shadowlands of January.

LISA

Jan 1st First light. 8.15am. New Year arrives kicking and shrieking and the sun barely opens one eyelid over the horizon. Every year I vow I’m not going to do another whole January here. Yet here I am. In the short weather window of opportunity to get out of the house today, I have to crouch down at times to stay upright in the gale force winds. Icy hail spits in my face like handfuls of gravel. I can barely see the foot of the mountain with its millions of tonnes of prehistoric rock. There must be many parts of this land that humans have never trodden on. That no shadows have ever been cast upon. Last light 4.36pm Jan 21st First Light 7.59am Rain drums down on the dormer windows and there was no chance of sleeping through the night with the howling, clattering wind. Sometimes you don’t want to go out but you have to. Hundreds of mini waterfalls have appeared along the roadside. I walk down to Loch Damph. The bracken is drenched and wind flattened revealing the carcass of a dead stag whose pristine white rib cage is splayed open and the gristle and meat are a shocking crimson red against the washed out vegetation. Last light 5.08pm Jan 23rd First Light 7.56am Drawing outside. So many types of rain, I can see it swooping in from miles away. Growing up in the city I drew rain as neat blue drops falling straight down from a single grey cloud.But here, it’s drifting horizontally in enormous, shifting columns of opaque and translucent french grey and the whole sky is a sea of water rinsing out mountains and forests and the wind whips it all up into a bubbling cauldron of sea vapour down at the Bay of Ob Mheallaidh. Constantly surrounded by the sublime I’m still compelled to make marks, to draw or paint or record and yet my efforts feel so futile in the face of it all. It’s overwhelming. The paper rips out of the clips and blows away. And the extremity of the land, the environment, the weather, the noise permeates through my skin, into my head and heart and shapes me. Last light 5.11pm The light comes earlier than I thought and leaves later than I thought.

‘3.55pm Jan 21st’ Rain and ink on 640gsm khadi paper. 56.5cm x 77cm

FLORE

‘Dear Father, I wish I could be normal’, layered drawing 80 x 30cm

JULIEANN To my children, When you were little you each drew people with tummy buttons. The forever mark of the bond between you and me that also speaks of the interconnection between us and everything else, of light woven together with darkness. In the dark there is no distance Waxing

Full

Waning

In darkness things merge Touch

Mark

Mend

One day a voice will whisper to you, and you will recognise it as your own A light that shines from within. I am afraid of many things, but because of you, and for you, I have become braver. With all my love forever, Mumma

Parto (detail). Mixed Media. Full work, 135 x 92cm

DEBBIE 20 Walks up to Gallows Hill Wood between Dawn and Dusk Pale Apricot dawning across a cold Horizon. Following Badger Tracks along a frozen Field Margin Kestrel hovering, holding the World still. The Trees speak of Snow. Seven Geese crossing a cold blue Sky. Heavy Sky coming down to my Feet. Walking up to the Wood’s edge to hear the Wind’s Roar. A Walk between two Storms. Waterlogged Ditch edging noiselessly across fields. Buzzard spiralling above a darkening Canopy. Long tailed Tits looping noisily through the hedge. Long dead Ash Tree resurrected gold at Sunset. Burrows leading into the darkening Earth. Seven Deer grazing at Dusk. Fox Skeleton on the edge of the Wood. Rooks against a pale Sky, Gulls against a dark Field. Jay calling across a night muffled wood. Pushing night blind through tightly stitched briars. Seeds waiting under the Earth. Wolf Moon. Everything and Nothing is here.

Between the Knowing and the Seeing, Ink, conte and black gesso on paper 42 x 58cm

JILLY MOONMILK Moonmilk, Moonmilk, Moonmilk - I cannot stop saying your name. You have embraced my consciousness. But what are you? You are a soft, white liquid. Believed to be made by the rays of the moon a gift from the heavens for us mortals. But we know that’s not true. You are a creamy-white substance found inside limestone and dolomite caves. You are a precipitate containing aggregates of fine crystals of varying carbonates calcite, aragonite, hydromagnesite and monohydrocalcite. But you are more than that...aren’t you? In your glory you once adorned cave walls. Long white enigmatic lines created by hands of prehistoric times - fluting shadows of ancient days. Past presences calling, a communication, a foundation, a lineage, a teaching? You are visceral, primeval, intuitive - you were the beginnings. A glimpse of life is revealed by the lines created from you the desire to acknowledge presence. Your mark was made it is now my turn. Moonmilk you have taught me many things - to relinquish into process to let go and breath into the creative. I am thankful. I traverse in the beauty of the shadowlands - I draw, dance, play and watch. I touch the surface of the paper and feel the silky, sensual Moonmilk on my fingers. I am intoxicated by the undulating lines, and feel alive. A constant flux changing before my eyes - the ever changing, teaching one’s soul. I reach out with a permission to surrender and I acknowledge who I am I tell the shadows of past, present and future... that I am here dancing in the shadows.

Moonmilk, Video still

PHYLLIDA Shadow Cloaks and Crowns With a sacred practice of interplay, Drawing unlocks thoughts. Stepping up onto paper thresholds, Twilight transitions direct shifting shapes. Curiously I feel my way, As above, so below, Evolve, revolve, retouch, remove. My shadow marks open up umbrella ideas. Darkest darks draw me to the light, Chalk halos and good vibrations. Margins of yellow gold attract, distract and warn. Nurture my trust in shadows Our Mother trees, in darkness, cooperate beneath our feet, Not compete. Keep it light, my living outline overlapping past traces. Follow radiating crowns of silhouettes in this ‘Moving life.’ Drawing a sensory presence, Pulsing cloaks wrap around, absorb, reflect then dissolve. A burst of light, slow reveals intensify, ghosts stretch forward, In time, with carbon black, I embrace shadows Celebrate the dark before figures fade.

Mixed media on board. 21 x 29.7cm

KATIE A Letter to Planet Earth from Outer Space

Looking down from my space pod, listening to the sounds of stars, I’m reminded of the birdsong at dusk. I have finally let go of gravity, circling joyfully in orbit, walking so lightly in space

I leave no trace. Listening. My shadow floats next to me, ungrounded, clinging to the surface of anything she can touch. My shadow only dares to come out in the light. My heart beats to

a remembered rhythm we can dance to. The beat

of the earth, the pulse of the planets. I draw

these sounds, these memories, on the walls of my space pod, my cave. To be found by future space archaeologists, looking for signs of ancient

life…. Meanwhile, I draw my brave new world, the universe as I now know it. Me, my pod, my shadow and I.

With love, Katie

My Space Pod, My Cave (Future Archaeology) Mixed Media, 200 x 210 X 100cm

INGEBORG We are in January and in the Shadow of Earth herself. Shadowlands Shadows Charcoal Changes Sssssshhhhhhh… I take the charcoal in my hand. I am drawn to drawing. As I am drawing into my Shadowlands, I am in conversation with shadowland wanderers like Dante and Olav Åsteson, - who travelled so far, and were changed by it. (…) Song of the Earth Song of the mystic vision of the Eternal Life Persephone, she is also with me. She lived in the Underworld for half the year when Earth’s shadow is cast over us. Persephone in the Underworld; was she abducted? Or did she fall in love? Was she breaking away from her mother? (…) Where the rift is, the break is. With charcoal in my hand, I search my own Shadowland, search for the rift, a break, the shift and the changes, for visions and shadows. What is in the light and what is in the dark? Shadowlands. Charcoal. Sssssshhhhhhh…

Quotes are from Louise Glück’s poetic work Averno from 2006

A Rift and a Shift, charcoal on paper, 63 x 96cm

CAROLINE NEBULOUS To the left. Do you remember how we met? I wasn’t sure at first it was you. I could barely follow you. At times you were dancing. It’s going to end, I thought. You reminded me that everyone sleeps. Descending I touched my neck, I felt a lump in space, a lump in my neck. I thought I might have to leave just like after years in a loveless marriage. Instead, I went for a walk in the bitterly cold weather. I looked for you in buckets of water. As I walked, I could hear the sound of the ice under my feet, not brain waves. I moved closer and found myself seeing into a woman’s mind, she was in love. Above This evening I dress up to meet you. I wonder do you ever feel crestfallen? We crack sorrel soup together. In the dark with my eyes open, going beyond what I know. I let the experience of darkness take over, I surrender inviting the world of darkness in. Looking up to the misty sky, I embrace the unexpected. Looking up and down continuously in the dark, I draw outside at night. In Blindness, Borges (1977), explains ‘having to sleep in this world of mist, in the greenish or bluish mist, vaguely luminous, which is the world of the blind’. Tonight, I experience that same mist with you. The stars like tear drops floating start spiralling as I focus my sight, going beyond the familiar. To the Right The golden disk with his lyre playing a love song to our new embrace appeared afew nights later. The world felt round, I caught a sense of your divine protection, a déjà vu in the womb. I couldn’t see you; it was like being not yet born. I remember that the shadows of the sun are long on the water. I float in the void, feeling your echo in the centre of my body. But are you there? I can’t bear being alive without you. The unbearable solitude, I want you, I love you, be there a day every ninety minutes my love! (with extracts in black from Orbital, Samantha Harvey, 2023)

Nebulous, Indian ink, watercolour and chalk,19 X 18cm

Biographies

The artist’s portraits were drawn by their peers on the program during our last meeting

LISA FENTON O’BRIEN STEPHEN JON COOPER Stephen Jon Cooper studied Ceramics,Theatre Design and Drama Therapy. During a career in Community Arts where he specialised in The Mask, in physical and non- naturalistic theatre. For the last six years Stephen has re-focused on drawing, making and using his own charcoal and this interest in primary technologies has led him to make string from plant fibre from which he makes nets. Drawing is his meditation and communication with self. @stephenjoncooper

FLORE GARDNER Scottish-French visual artist, living and working in Edinburgh. Her primary practice is drawing : drawing because it is intimate, fragile, nomad, experimental, immediate : the medium of freedom and resistance. She obtained her PhD in Fine Art at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 2007 and has been exhibiting internationally since 2004. In 2019 she was awarded a Royal Scottish Academy Residency Bursary, and in 2022 received Creative Scotland Open funding to self-publish a series of printed multiples. @floregardner floregardner.co.uk

Based in the NW Highlands for twenty years Lisa’s practice focusses on the extremity of theremote environment. Working outside she strives to capture a sense of place and the human condition using weather, drawing, sound, video.Ba(Hons) Expressive Arts, Brighton. MFA Sheffield/Aberdeen 2024 Exhibitions - RWS Open &amp; VAS Centenary, Royal Scottish Academy. Her sound and video work has toured internationally. Artist in residence at Outlandia, London Fieldworksand work published in ‘Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture’. @lisafentonartist lisafenton.co.uk

JULIEANN WORRALL HOOD Alone in the dark, out in a storm, or collaborating with poets, performers and scientists, Julieann weaves together multi-sensory experiences through drawing and sculpture. Based in Wiltshire, England, she studied Fine Art in Edinburgh and Bath. Artist-inResidence at V&A London, Luton Museum and to the counties of Wiltshire, Somerset and Santarem (Portugal), commissions include Denver Museum of Childhood (USA), Chanel, Conran and Coldplay. Her work features in Creating Spaces: The History of the Bath Schools of Art & Design. @jwoho woho.co.uk

DEBBIE LOANE

JILLY MORRIS

Debbie studied Fine Art Painting at Bretton Hall, Leeds University. She is informed by the spaces she navigates; creating maps of walks and runs made over the landscape, both rural and urban. Current work is increasingly performative using predetermined and preprepared natural pigments and mark making tools in place.

Jilly’s work is response-led, particularly to place or process, frequently referencing cultural narratives and rituals they embrace. She incorporates drawing, sculpture and video within her practice. Her interest lies in transition, particularly notions of unpredictability. Jilly has been a nomadic artist for 5 years and currently bases herself between Thailand and UK. She graduated with an MA at the University of the West of England in 2006.

@debbie.loane debbieloane.co.uk

@jilly_morris_artist jillymorris.co.uk

PHYLLIDA SHELLEY

KATIE SOLLOHUB

Phyllida is a visual artist and teacher exploring the depiction of humanity at sites of historical interest. Her work is inspired by her residency at Cookham Abbey, an archaeological excavation site. Phyllida’s training in Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art and Sequential Illustration at the University of Brighton continues to inspire her creative practice. Drawing is the foundation of her printmaking and 3D work and recent exhibitions include group shows and a solo exhibition of prints and drawings..

Currently living in Shoreham by Sea, on Planet Earth, Katie works in multidisciplinary forms, including film, performance, drawing and painting; incorporating sound, movement and social engagement into recent projects. At the root of it all, she sees drawing as the primary language with which she investigates the world and communicates her ideas. Katie has a degree in Social Anthropology, and an ongoing interest in movement and meditation, all of which inform her current creative practice.

@phyllidashelley phyllidashelley.com

@katiesollohub katiesollohub.co.uk

INGEBORG STORBÆK

CAROLINE WENDLING

Ingeborg Storbæk lives and works in rural Norway. She studied Fine Arts at the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Landscape Architecture in Norway. Her background is from sculpture (stone carving) and printmaking, and after having put down the hammer and chisel, drawing has become her preferred way of artistic expression. Her work often derives from nature -on a large or small scale, but she aims to rather express how it feels (to be in it), than how it looks. This is also her attitude when working with myths, dreams, literature and other stories.

Caroline Wendling’s artworks range across media including drawing, print, performance, sound and film, with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary, site specific and socially engaged. Wendling constructs participatory walks and interventions drawing on myth, memory and storytelling. Educated in her native France and the UK, Wendling lectures at the University of Reading and teaches at West Dean College.

@ingebaal

@caroline_wendling

Published as an outcome of the Drawing Correspondence Program: SHADOWLANDS

reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without express permission of Drawing Correspondence and the artists.