Drawing paper
#2
Drawing Paper is an occasional celebration of drawing published independently by its own contributors and curated and produced by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough in Liverpool UK. Building on the success of Drawing Paper 1 we are pleased to present here another selection of drawings by artists who consider drawing to be central to their process or practice. In Drawing Paper 2, we have cast our nets wider with invited submissions from established artists, emerging artists, recent graduates and educators from around the UK (Liverpool, Manchester, Derby and London) alongside artists from other parts of Europe, America, Australia and Asia. We’ve invited submissions from artists (without offering a particular brief or theme) who are making drawings that work for them in the communication of ideas, sensations, places, people or things. Contributors are free to submit whatever they choose although in many cases they have discussed with us how they feel about a few possible alternatives before finally selecting work for publication. This loose curatorial approach makes for a varied and fresh collection with sometimes curious juxtapositions and a broad range of experiences for the viewer from precise, obsessive works to free and expressive drawings: from abstract minimal to full, rich representational drawing.
We are heartened and encouraged to receive submissions, interest and positive feedback from all over the world via our blog (www.drawingpaper.tumblr.com) and some artists featured in Drawing Paper 2 have come to our attention via the blog so if you like what you see and want to get involved, go and check it out and get in touch. We try to post new content once or twice a week so it’s becoming an interesting place to visit. This may beg the question “why print a newspaper of drawings anyway?” Our response is that the experience of navigating through a printed document with it’s sense of ink on paper and ideas about relative scale, detail and sequence of pages can’t quite be produced in any other way. It lends a special quality to the work – although the images are reproductions they are once again tactile. It’s also a newspaper and that suggests the idea that drawing is newsworthy. Drawing Paper 2 is published in September 2010 to coincide with the 10th Liverpool Biennial (www.biennial.com) providing us with an opportunity to be seen by artists, art tourists and extra visitors to the city. Drawing Paper is a valuable platform for all artists involved, potentially opening up their work to new and diverse audiences. We will also be hosting some free drawing based events, a ‘Drawing Paper Drop-In’ of sorts, as part of ‘The Cooperative’ strand of the Independents Biennial from Wednesday 20 – Sunday 24 October, so if you’re in Liverpool come and say hello and bring your favourite pencils. Take a look at the website www.thecooperative.info for more details on venue and opening hours.
Drawing Paper is a freely distributed, not for profit publication. It is funded and made possible solely by its contributors. Here’s the deal – each artist pays an equal amount for their page which in total covers the production costs. With this model it is possible to be liberated from the tedious rigours of funding applications and criteria guidelines, enabling us to do things on our own terms – Drawing Paper is a logo and advert free zone. If you would like extra copies of Drawing Paper to be sent to you or your establishment please email us at something@mikesstudio.co.uk Sincere thanks to all contributors for your support, encouragement and enthusiasm. Special thanks to Emily Speed for her help promoting Drawing Paper 1. All artworks copyright © The Artists. Published in September 2010. Back cover photo: Jon Barraclough, ‘Snail Trail’. Conceived and designed in Liverpool, UK by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough. www.mikesstudio.co.uk www.jonbarraclough.co.uk Printed in a limited edition of 3000 by Sharman and Company, Peterborough.
www.drawing-paper.tumblr.com
Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy ‘Protective Energy’. Etching on Revere paper. Edition of 10. (304 x 457mm). 2010.
Jagjit Chuhan ‘Figure I’. Pastel on paper. (297 x 420mm). 2010.
Anita Plank ‘Untitled’. Carbon pencil in sketchbook. (300 x 420mm) 2010.
Tabitha Kyoko Moses ‘Thread Drawing / Drawing Thread’ (detail). 2010.
Katherine Lloyd ‘Envelope Drawings’. Various pens, graphite, Tipex ink, chalk pens. (320 x 126mm). 2010.
Kentaro Kobuke ‘Letter 1, 13, 12 and 9’. Coloured pencil on envelopes. (dimensions variable). 2010.
Kate Smith ‘Twist’. Pencil on paper. (1016 x 1372mm). 2008.
Lucy MacDonald ‘Untitled’. Pencil and graphite on paper. (1828 x 1219mm). 2010.
Julia McKenzie ‘The China Sea’. Original pen and ink drawing, coloured in Photoshop. (300 x 300mm). 2010.
Karin Lindholm ‘Head in Profile’. Graphite on paper. (130 x 140mm). 2010.
Matt Niebuhr ‘Untitled (shimmer)’. Charcoal and graphite on polyester drafting film. (457 x 609mm) 2010.
Lizzie Hall ‘Love Letter’. Ink, graphite, conte on paper. (600 x 400mm). 2010.
Andrew Wilson ‘Piece By Piece’ (top) ‘Eye Spy’ Graphite and biro on masked photograph. (210 x 148mm). 2010.
Richard Creed ‘Nature Man, Big-Foot, Manufactured Exotic’. Ink on paper. (830 x 550mm). 2008.
Alexandra Wolkowicz ‘A small planet no. 3’. Graphite and charcoal on paper. (750 x 590mm). 2010.
Sachiko Abe ‘Drawing Works #12’. Pen (Uniball sig 0.28 UM-151-28) onto paper (KMK Kent 200). (217 x 309mm). 2010.
James Loftus ‘Field Array’. Ink, graphite, acetate. (420 x 297mm). 2010.
Kirsty White ‘Fish Balloon (1941)’ (93 x 116mm) ‘Mr Potato Head (2004)’ (107 x 132mm) ‘Dragon Balloon (1931)’ (142 x 112mm) Pencil on paper. 2010.
Al Murphy ‘The Beatles’. Digital drawing. (259 x 350mm). 2010.
Sachiko Abe ‘I completed first drawing in 2005 but it is only an attempt. It is, of course, important for me but I don’t consider it as an artwork. It was doodling to start off with. But my drawing is almost parallel to my performance ‘Cut Papers’ as there is no conceptual connection to the drawing. My main aim to do the drawing is to complete. On the other hand, the performance is about the state of what I am thinking and who I am. Drawing is another natural way of expressing myself, much like my cutting paper works. I draw by day and cut by night. These are the two sides of my expression. I am going to do my performance ‘Cut Papers’ and show my drawing works in Liverpool Biennial at A Foundation from start to end, 18 September – 28 November 2010.’ www.afoundation.org.uk
Lizzie Hall In the series called ‘Love Letter’, I used a child’s toy, the ‘junior sketch-a-graph’ (where a pencil is placed in one position on the articulated plastic ‘arm’ of the sketch-a-graph and a stylus which is used to direct the pencil on another and is intended for tracing and duplicating images) to write a letter to my lover. The sketch-a-graph, it turns out, is unable to replicate with any accuracy and instead turns the writing into a series of illegible scrawls, which wander around the paper leaving only their snail trails as a clue to what was written. When the individual pages are hung together they create a series of arcs and swoops, which seem to be the natural rhythm of the sketch-a-graph.
Katherine Lloyd Using the dimensions of an envelope as her starting point naturally welcomes the derivation of a drawing / doodle. She plays with free, fluid yet flat rhythmic lines that interact and fuse together across the width of the envelope to create a culmination of patterns and shapes that conjure up a distinct whiff of some sort of enigmatic landscape, introducing fragments of colour along the way. Her drawings are partly born out of absorbed memory and are partly the result of a series of on the spot aesthetic and spontaneous decisions. katherine_lloyd_302@hotmail.com
Lizzie Hall is an Australian artist who graduated from the Printmedia and Drawing workshop at the Canberra School of Art. Her work encompasses painting, drawing and soft sculpture.
Julia McKenzie ‘My work is about missed things, the residues, and the forgotten in my environment. I look for the evidence of nature that I can hold in my hand. They are discarded things re-examined. The broken china and shards of enamel were found in one small place in less than an hour, during a walk on the Kent coast. The eroded fragments of plates, cups and jars are all decorated with elements of nature. As you examine each piece you catch glimpses of lemon groves, cherry blossom, a Japanese pagoda, a bullock in a stream, a dragon. All these idealised and imagined vignettes of nature are now exposed to the elements and are being slowly worn away by the waves. I have rescued them and recorded them. They show us our desire to connect with the natural world. We want to take it inside with us and decorate our everyday lives with it, own it, organize it. Ultimately we throw away these little Edens when they no longer function, now nature will reabsorb them and claim them back. ‘
www.lizziehall.com.au
www.juliamckenzie.co.uk
Jagjit Chuhan ‘In my paintings and drawings the poses and gestures of the human form in interior spaces suggest strength and fragility, pleasure and pain. The figure is sometimes powerful with energy and sometimes vulnerable. Issues of gender are implicit in representations of identity and of control or being out-of-control. A sense of intimacy combines with a fascination for observation of the figure, often presented in isolation and retaining a sense of privacy.’ Jagjit Chuhan is an artist based in London and the North West. Exhibitions of her paintings have been staged in Europe, Asia and UK venues including Tate Liverpool; Barbican Centre, London; Arnolfini, Bristol and Ikon, Birmingham. Solo exhibition venues include Horizon Gallery, London; The Lowry, Salford and Watermans Arts Centre, London. Her paintings are held in collections including the Arts Council Collection, University of Liverpool Art Collection, Usher Gallery in Lincoln and Cartwright Hall in Bradford.
Kentaro Kobuke Born in Hiroshima. Painter. Completed the MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts and Design. Collaborated with Comme des Garcons in 2003. Solo exhibitions include Parfait (2004, SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo), Names (2008, AAA Gallery, Paris). Participated in the group show The Franks-Suss collection (2010, Phillips de Pury & Company at Saatchi Gallery, London). Kentaro is currently based in London. www.scaithebathhouse.com
Richard Creed is an artist based in London, Liverpool and Manchester. His paintings have been widely shown at venues including the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in the John Moores Painting Exhibition; Cornerhouse, Manchester; Pitshanger Manor Gallery, London; Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry; The Lowry, Salford; North-West House, Brussels, Belgium; Orebro Castle, Sweden; Shanghai University, China; Teo Wetterling Gallery, Singapore; University of Liverpool Art Gallery and the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport.
From celestially aligned megaliths through the camera obscura rooms of the renaissance along Haussmann’s telescopic boulevards to the omnivoyance of urban surveillance we see a reciprocal propagation between optical devices and structures, each axiomatic of the other’s logic. My works inhabit this cyclic relation in which the space outside the camera infiltrates the space inside the camera, which in turn re-imposes itself onto the space outside the camera. Field Array is part of a series of speculative Diagraphs, both explanatory and exploratory. Geometric construction generates ideal forms which transfigure to integrate the optical, architectural and ritual aspects of the Work.
j.chuhan333@btinternet.com
Richard Creed ‘The theme of my paintings and drawings is of ‘paradise lost’ where the material world evaporates into a physical or psychological disaster. Ideas of loss and alienation encompass references to the 2004 tsunami, Chinese ghost stories and iconic figures which have become part of our mythology such as the astronaut and Big-foot.’
James Loftus I am an artist who uses the manifold and recondite relationship between photography and architecture as both tool and material. The relatively unmediating singularity of the pinhole aperture has proven an ideal breach through which to re-examine the intimate co-evolution of instrumental vision and the built environment.
www.scopotrope.com
Karin Lindholm ‘At the time when I did the drawing Head in Profile my painting studio had been temporarily transformed into a homemade photography studio; I was since a couple of months preoccupied with the series of self-portraits that were later titled Knäppfinger. My frantic day to day drawing activity was therefore stalled, but I had set aside an area of the studio for occasional small-scale work where I focused on drawing the detailed face. The mouth has great significance in the photographs, I’m stretching the mouth, allowing my fingers to slip inside the mouth etc. and perhaps that is why I especially got stuck on the mouth in the drawing: I opened and closed it, drew a tongue and took it out.’ Karin Lindholm is an artist based in Stockholm. A catalogue with the Knäppfinger photographs is to be published in October 2010. Please see the website for more information. www.karinlindholm.com
Tabitha Kyoko Moses Tabitha Moses’ thread drawings depend upon the movement of the viewer and the play of light to awaken them. As one approaches, they describe constantly changing planes and impossible solids. Thread Drawing / Drawing Thread seems to suggest the spider, frozen, as if caught in her own spindly snare. Elegant and malevolent, her legs (claws? blades?) simultaneously threaten and beckon. On the other hand it is just an exercise in drawing with thread. Undone with a pair of scissors. Resulting from a two-week-two-person residency at The Bridewell Gallery, Liverpool, the thread drawings are something of a departure for Moses and were made in response to Damien Cruikshank’s folded paper constructions. www.tabithakyokomoses.com
Lucy MacDonald Born 1984, Peterborough, England. Education 2004 – 2008 BA. Hons Painting and Printmaking, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow.
Al Murphy ‘Here is a picture of the Beatles. They were really quite good.’
Selected Group Exhibitions 2009 Annuale, The Embassy, Edinburgh. 2008 ‘Der Student Von Prague’–The Now Museum, Glasgow. 2008 Beresford House, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. 2008 R.S.A Student Exhibition, The Mound, Edinburgh.
www.al-murphy.com
Awards and Prizes 2008 – DLA Piper Award 2009 (shortlist). lucyemacdonald@googlemail.com
Matt Niebuhr Matt Niebuhr is an artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. His interest is in examining the threshold at which ordinary visibility ends and perception begins. The drawing series grouped with the term ‘shimmer’ is an ongoing study of the phenomenon shimmer. Matt’s interest exploring the idea of shimmer comes as a reaction to a long background of drawing related to his architectural design practice whereby architectural drawing is generally viewed as a document which is representational. Rather than approaching drawing as referential or representational, the ‘shimmer’ drawing series seeks to be viewed as an object on its own terms. It is a drawing that seeks to be more like the intransitive verb sense of the word shimmer – a phenomenon. The ‘shimmer’ series attempts to embody the experience which is unique to the circumstances of seeing the drawing in person. Viewing the drawing is the experience of shimmer, which shifts and changes as the position of lighting and the position of the viewer changes relative to the drawing. The drawing retains a sense of description, but rather than referring to circumstances outside of itself, the drawing is the phenomenon.
Kate Smith ‘I have always drawn – of particular interest is physical contact with surface, the activity and gesture of drawing as well as the resulting mark or imprint and exploring the sign of the hand in making. I am interested in indicators of human presence – e.g. a worn piece of fabric, a footprint in the sand or a furrow in a field – specifically a mark or residue left behind as the result of unconscious actions or gestures. Taking marks and residues left behind as the result of conscious and unconscious actions or gestures I explore the idea of drawing as a combination of gesture, mark and trace or imprint. Work is exclusively drawing based and ranges from large, meticulously rendered drawings to collections of accidental, intentional and found marks.’
Andrew Wilson ‘The drawings Piece by Piece and Eye Spy combine a current enjoyment of drawing and photography. Masking over the drawings hides aspects of the photograph, at which point it’s up to me to decide what I want to focus on and bring out most from these intimate photographs by drawing on top of the masking tape. I’m a Liverpool-based artist from North Wales, working away at The Royal Standard. As well as these recent drawings I have been working on small 3D pieces and combining these also with photography to create some interesting imagery.’ monkeywrenchguy@hotmail.com
Kate Smith has exhibited nationally and internationally including the Drawing Center, New York in 2008. She has two solo shows in 2011 – ‘Touch and Trace’ at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, 13 August – 30 October 2010 and ‘Mark and Movement’ at DÉDA, Derby, 29 August – 30 October 2010. www.kate-smith.co.uk Alexandra Wolkowicz ‘I found a metal disc, it reminded me of the moon. I picked it up and photographed it. I wanted to make it look like a planet.
www.mattniebuhr.com
This rubbing is an experiment at using drawing to achieve the same effect. In the same way that I draw with light as a photographer, I made an impression of an object onto paper. It felt less immediate than photography, rather like the slow build up of layers and intensity.’
Anita Plank ‘I have a fascination for the human form. For me, a face or figure is a landscape to be explored and it is through the medium of drawing that my inner creativity continues to give me a sense of deep fulfillment.’ Anita Plank studied Graphic Arts at Northumbria University and practiced as an illustrator and designer in Amsterdam, Paris and London where she was a founder member of Panic Station in the 1980s. She returned to Newcastle to teach in the 1990s. She currently lives in North Wales designing, creating typography and drawing. anitaplank14@yahoo.co.uk
Kirsty White I love creating images of a highly realistic nature in a variety of traditional media – I am rarely very far away from a pencil or two! The inspiration for much of my work stems from my love of facts (no matter how trivial!) and how they, and the acquisition of knowledge, can become even more fascinating when interpreted visually. I also take great pleasure in creating and drawing highly detailed images that combine elements which you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see together – along with a few hidden details that take some searching for. I get a thrill out of visually solving problems and challenging myself. When it comes to the subject matter I am drawing, the more complex, contextually accurate, beautiful and time consuming the better! To see more of my drawing, as well as my book cover design and bookmaking work please visit my online portfolio at www.kirstywhite.co.uk ‘Fish Balloon (1941)’, image sourced from Life magazine: ‘Dragon Balloon (1931)’, image sourced from the NY Daily News (online). www.kirstywhite.co.uk
Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy is a french artist based in New York. Her artwork combines drawing, printmaking, sculpture, book art, and photography to explore the interconnected value of identity and memory. Her multi-media approach to art reflects the unique way she experienced the world growing up in an old farmhouse in the French countryside.The values of preservation, attachment to roots and relationship with land and time, emphasized in her childhood, continues to inspire her work. By exploring and juxtaposing subtle links between anatomy, psychology, ecology and cosmology, Mathilde tries to understand the mysteries of our inner and outer selves. Likewise, in seeking to reveal the world’s invisible energies, knots and folds, fragments and marks, she strives to raise awareness of the key role that nature plays in our lives. www.mathilderousselgiraudy.com
Alexandra Wolkowicz is a Polish/German photographer and artist currently resident in Liverpool UK. She explores themes about our relationship with the world and how we share it with each other and other living things. Essentially tactile and documentary, her work springs from her experience with photography, performance, theatre and the creation of unique representations of places, things and histories which move her. She works with still and moving imagery often with the addition of sound. Her intervention with things and situations found is to alter, adjust and reconstruct the familiar in order to create moving, thought-provoking and poetic representations. Her working practice is often collaborative and multidisciplinary choosing to select media appropriate to the aesthetics and content of a particular piece. She has travelled widely and has worked with artists and in residencies in Europe, North America and Asia. Alex will be showing ‘Tabula Rasa’, a collaborative installation with Jon Barraclough at the UnityTheatre during the Liverpool Biennial, 18 September – 28 November 2010. www.studiowolkowicz.com