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MARY

MARY

Five-day drawing

Coldness overnight transforms water and graphite powder into brittle, glass like sheets. I arrange some shards from the broken sheets into an abstract form and take a photograph. The ice structure is taken inside and placed onto thick paper. Soon a watery pool becomes a record of how the warmth has melted the frozen structure. Much, longer still and the watery stain dries and leaves a trace, a drawing which looks to me like a Bowhead whale from Greenland.

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Elegy to a melting world

London Dec 2022

You arrive in the darkness while we are sleeping Soft flakes gather momentum, layering silent and cold

Under your metamorphosing blanket the world is momentarily stilled Pale ghosts and monsters you make, trees bow and distort under their heavy coats

Snatches of colour zing and ping, berry red and rust Blinking, as if emerging from the back of old wardrobes, children rush to greet you Roll in and throw you Fine branches dusted white, emboss against a pale sky

Greenland Dec 2022

The Inuit have many names for different kinds of snow

To build an igloo you need hard snow

The best hard snow is called ‘Pugaq’

The cold wind from the ice sheet hardens the snow

This snow is vanishing as temperatures in the Artic rise

Dear Fungi,

One day I began to draw your mycelium encircling the earth. I looked under the jumble of winter leaves and frost. You were hidden so I imagined a dark place underground where you were slowly moving in all directions, joining up with the roots of all the great forests, connecting and nourishing the quiescent trees. It was comforting to think of you there like a protective blanket, ancient and immense. Your minute and delicate fibres reaching and deciding how best to move into the future. I went to find some of your fruit in my garden. I heard that you can sense my footsteps above you. As I looked, small mushrooms emerged from dark shadows. We were observing each other quietly by the goat willow. My feet and your hyphae were connected by the cold earth. I felt your tranquillity and balance. Drawing you allows me to savour that moment of wonder and hope, for a world where human systems might echo your balanced ways. Here is a drawing of myself as you.

Yours, Siri.

Dear Multiple Sclerosis,

We have lived together for 15 years, and you know more of me than I of you. You cover neurological landscapes that I never knew existed.

Yes, I have been told of where you situate and of your scattered, inflammatory appearance, however you are still unfamiliar to me, but I can feel you. Like in the natural world you are growing on your own terms, you stake your claim on grounds that should be untouched, by corroding, burning and devastating what was once there.

I have thoughtfully explored this subterrain you have carved for yourself, through line and mark making, depicting the layers and networks of blistering destruction I envisage. Capturing the vast complexities, between layers of waxed paper, holding you still.

While drawing you, I feel you less.

portraits biography

Jacqueline Amies

Jacqueline Amies

Walking, and observing the natural world have always been inspirations for her textile, photography and printmaking work.

Recently studying at West Dean college her work has developed into installations with 3D forms and assemblages.

Jackie has always found drawing difficult and it has been considered as her Archilles heel. The Drawing Correspondence has enabled a supportive, fun, and engaging environment that has given her peace, new confidence, and enjoyment in the drawing process without the fear of criticism.

@jackieamiesartist

Arpit Bhrgava

Arpit Bhargava

In his day job he is a researcher, understanding complex topics by talking to people. For the last 7 years, he has also had a drawing practice. Art to him is a 40 year plan. It is a deeply rewarding endeavour with infinite depth, with new languages to learn, communities to be a part of, and ways to live.

@ga.ruda

Gillian Cooper

Gillian’s practice is in installation, drawing and print and seeks to excavate the overlooked, hidden, intangible and ephemeral in the objects and natural processes of the everyday. Her works are hand made; the most direct and tactile expression, referencing difference and above all that which is human. Her recent solo exhibition of drawings and prints, NEST, explored migration, home and belonging through the forms of imaginary and recollected birds’ nests.Gillian has exhibited at gallery and site specific venues throughout the UK including Arnolfini, Bristol, The Exchange and Newlyn Galleries, the ICA London and a large scale temporary installation for Chiltern Sculpture Trail, Oxford. International exhibitions include HDK Berlin, Produzentengalerie Hanover and the Serbian Sculpture Biennale Pancevo.

Jane Greenstreet

For the last five years I have lived on the Isle of Arran in Scotland looking out at the sea. For 30 years Chantraine Dance of Expression has been a central focus in my life both as a dance teacher and performer. In the last 3 years I have become interested in finding a link between the ‘inhabited gesture’ of dance and embodied drawings. Drawing, like dance, allows me to capture an intuitive, immediate, and intimate physical response to the world I experience daily. I treasure it for what it reveals.

Mary Low

Mary Low was born in rural Yorkshire and now resides in the Welsh Hills. She became a full time artist in 2002. Mary is neurodiverse and although self-taught her experimentation and curiosity allowed her to develop her art into abstract paintings, collaborative art projects, prints and land art. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and overseas.

@marylowart www.marylowart.com

Leonie Siri Macmillan

MA Film and Theatre, PGDip Electronic Imaging. Has been working with ceramics for nearly 30 years.

Interested in creating narratives where science and mythology intertwine in comment to the human condition. Loves to draw.

www.siriceramics.com @leoniemacmillan

Caroline Macdonald

Caroline is primarily a printmaker, interested in evoking and working with emergent and responsive surfaces, materials, bodies, and spaces. Using the practice of marbling and a variety of digital ruptures to invite in the unexpected and enable chance to play a role in her practice. Mirrors, combined with liquids, create further unpredictable repetitions and depths in the surface of her works. Extra dimensions are implied though the splicing and digital reverse and reconfiguration of forms when orientated around the fold.

Kirsty Stevens

Designer & Visual Artist using drawing to explore the chronic illnesses that she lives with, Multiple Sclerosis and Endometriosis. With the aim to gain a better understanding herself but also to raise awareness by making these invisible illnesses visible, combining art & science.

Selected as V+A Dundee, Scotland’s Design Museum, First Design Champion 2017. Jewellery &Metal Design BDes Hons, Duncan Of Jordanstone Art School, Dundee.

@charcotstudio www.charcot.co.uk

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