1 3 T H
T H E
-
1 4 T H
F E B R U A R Y
P R I S O N
D E A N
R O A D
•
2 0 1 6
P R O J E C T
S C A R B O R O U G H
Facebook Search ‘Scarborough Prison Drawing Project 2016’ Twitter @team_prison Email prisondrawingproject@gmail.com
R E F L E C T I O N S T H E
P R I S O N
O N
D R A W I N G
P R O J E C T B Y
L U C Y
O ’ D O N N E L L
This exhibition at the ‘The Old Borough of Scarborough
Equally it is the cell where an embodied dis(placement)
Jail’ or Dean Road Prison brings a variety of drawing
can intensify and distill ontological reflections of being.
approaches together. The project took an open-ended
Badiou aligns drawings ontological and often fragile
position to drawing, offering an opportunity for artists
characteristic as a ‘movable reciprocity between existence
to bring an unrestricted approach into a particularly
and inexistence’. The Prison Drawing Project brought
restricted scenario. The exploratory characteristics of
together a breadth of drawing practices that looked
drawing frequently yield types of practice that question
to the sensitivities of existence and inexistence, from
its indexicality, flexibility, imaginable spaces and range
mutually corporeal and speculative perspectives. These
of materials. The experiences embedded with drawing’s
(dis)placements for both the artists participapting in the
methods and the phenomenological characteristics of
project and the drawings unfolding within its bounded
drawing regularly bestow an emphasis to process and
cells endow possibilizing.
play back notes of becoming. The range of approaches encompassed by practitioners demonstrates the value
For The Prison Drawing Project it is these becomings
bestowed to contemporary drawing as both verb and
that reverberate ideas initiated in the 1970’s with
noun. It is somewhere here between the act and the
Rosalind Krauss term expanded field that unfastened
thing that articulates the in-between spaces thoughts
drawing’s orientation, realigning concepts of medium
muster and dwell. Contemporary fine art drawing
and environment to reject the conditions of a particular
undoubtedly and knowingly plays with its conceptual
material or mode of making. However, The Prison Drawing
elasticity or its inconclusive nature. This perspective
Project celebrates drawing’s freedom by emphasizing
fractures boundaries and re-evaluates its historic canon as
the boundary of the cell where the interrogation of
a preparatory undertaking.
borders outlines critical edges as places ‘with play’. This aligns perspectives more to Sawdon & Marshall who
Can we appreciate drawing as transcript becomings?
in Hyperdrawing (2012) re-evaluate the boundaries,
Many, including myself, have proposed an alliance
conventions and materials of drawing. After talking with
between drawing and becoming; Berger (2005) Bryson
the artists involved in The Prison Drawing Project the
(2003) Naginski (2000) O’Donnell (2016) Sawdon &
exchange between the drawing and its bounded cell
Marshall (2012). If we think about the fundamentals of
was stimulating. This (dis)placement offered disclosure
drawing as composing marks it would be reasonable
to divulge the in-between spaces thoughts muster and
to make an analogy to the notion of placement. Alan
dwell. And any conventional or historic notions of drawing
Badiou (2006) makes insightful connections to drawing’s
as a preparatory activity makes me wonder... preparing for
activities and likens it to performance and happenings,
what if we have willingly displaced resolute certainty?
maintaining it as a place that dis(places) all things in it. The Prison Drawing Project imagined drawing’s
Artists are brought together led by Tracy Himsworth,
‘placement’, its activities and yield motivational.
Kate Black, Andy Black, Andrew Cheetham, Sally Taylor
The bounded cell detains the contributor’s drawings
and myself who together intended the project’s call for
making comparable visual analyses between others
applications as an opportunity for practitioners to use
work challenging, if not impossible. The confinements of
the exchange between the drawing and its bounded
the cell act as the place to jointly create and stage the
dwelling as a motivating catalyst. I had the privilege to
drawings. It is here where the cell acts as the platform
be a part of the selection process and write reflections for
to share the drawings but holds tight to its function
the catalogue.
as the place for detention, confinement and duration.
Photo Credit: Mike Ambler (mikeambler@yahoo.co.uk)
These written reflections group the contributors for
In both April Virgoe’s and Nicola Holloway’s approach’s
discussion. Overarching to this arrangement is the play
they contemplate drawings delicate material sensibilities.
between interior/exterior spaces, material sensibilities,
For April Virgoe her interests consider spaces of order
and the significance of space and sequence. A review of
and disorder, reality and fiction. After seeing drawings
imagined spaces follows this and the reflections close
stenciled by soldiers on the barracks ceiling at Berwick-
with a focus upon performance. Contributors Catherine
upon-Tweed Museum, her work for the project restages
Anyango, Andy Black, Russell Smith and Evy Jokhova
fumage drawings, speaking of these messages left by the
all tease out the dynamics between the inside and
soldiers. These fragile drawings tell of the soldiers desire
outside spaces of the prison in their work. Catherine
to trace their presence echoing the yearning embedded
Anyango’s drawings look towards the crimes that dictate
in Pliny’s Shadow. However, by drawing stairs with the
incarceration. For the project a large drawing covers the
smoke April Virgoe contradicts the narrative of Pliny’s
walls depicting a crime scene. She thinks about the cell as
Shadow to mark out or reaffirm presence, instead she
defined by the exterior, where the detention is due to the
conjures an exit route offering the incarcerated chance
acts carried out beyond its walls. ‘Exterior crime scenes
to break from the stronghold. These drawings evoke the
demand the understanding of a space that is at the limit
idea that they can live out fantasies and ultimately breach
of our knowledge. They are often hinterlands - it is telling
the cell boundaries. Nicola Holloway’s work for the project
that the murders by Brady and Hindley are known as
also acknowledges drawing’s fragility. By responding to
the Moors murders.’ For Andy Black his drawings utilize
the space of the cell she meticulously follows and fills the
a type of scripted index influenced by the landscape or
cracks and textured surfaces of the walls by repeatedly
manifestations associated to plants or architecture. This
drawing dots. This work intensifies our awareness of time,
index acts as ‘players’ that are organised into a pictorial
where the marked dots build in mass as ‘notations’ acting
space where the perspective acts as an infinite panorama
out the unseen narratives of the site. The delicate dotted
apprehended in the paper’s whiteness. The space in the
insertions mark out activities passed, drawing them forth
drawing hovers between the recognisable and peculiar,
and resuming them back into the present. This makes
offering unearthly gardens to dwell. For the prison the
for a sensual and suggestive process that acknowledges
idea of panorama is re-examined where the cell walls
both the temporal nature of drawing and the durational
perform as a drawing support. This plays a new dynamic
activity undertaken in making the work.
that possess the space of the garden as an aspiration or vision of the cell’s inhabitant. Russell Smith works
Rachael Renwick’s work contemplates the idea of space,
with similar preoccupations for the project, using it as
freedom and sequence, working within a grid depicting
an opportunity to shift the exterior into the interior. His
drawn knots. The drawing process she works with sets
idyllic landscape acts as a gesture of transformation
particular rules. However, the rules in this instance are
where the drawing brings an opening for reflection into
managed to liberate any systematic agenda by collecting
a space that breaks its regime. The interpretation of the
open-ended statements or questions and using these
work is shaped by its liminal qualities performing as a
as types of instructions to alter her drawing approach.
virtual space to dwell similar to a mirage or a window
Fiona Grady also unites notions of space and sequence,
none the less artificial in its illusion. Evy Jokhova’s practice
making references to marked tallies to map out duration.
can be comprehended as fundamentally expanded.
This process is likely to evoke references to prisoners
Working with a range of materials including paint,
or incarceration however here the use of egg tempera
masking tape, clay, charcoal and collage she made her
evokes references to frescos, or icons painted on church
drawing on site responding to the space of the cell.
walls. The cell takes on a certain ambience, created from
This work brings together physical and philosophical
the light reflecting onto the tallies where a contemplative
experiences of being. It anticipates the psychological
or even peaceful space emerges.
influences of the space and speculates upon cultivated disorders adopted by the confinement and limited
Kate Black, Andrew Cheetham, Shelley Theodore and
movement.
Sally Taylor all worked in the imagined space drawing can reveal. These artists all referenced the ‘body’ within the cell, opening up the space of both the cell and that
of drawing as one of possibilizing. Kate Black’s drawings
cell, as joint restricted spaces where activities are always
are a place for the unpredictable. They do not depict
conscious of their boundaries. The work incorporates
encounters from our everyday; rather bestow a place for
explorations from my current research where the
conjured scenarios. Here drawing becomes a place to
inscriptive and expressive characteristics of drawing and
literally play in the wonderful where anything is possible.
writing are acknowledged and fused to become drawing/
Pasted onto the cell walls her drawings offer images of
writing. This method is described as a vocative hybrid, and
tunnelling prisoners, or potholers maybe even miners?
argued as creating opportunities for wonder. It is these
These figures tell tales of escape routes in their burrowed
navigations, or wonderings that become the focus for the
labyrinth and the cell is literally extended, acting as
project where the pages of my PhD thesis are repetitively
both an opening to expose and project desire. Andrew
redrafted. Within its flat boundaries the paper becomes
Cheetham’s drawing depicts a figure or character that
a type of constituent where thoughts are caught, overlaid
we assume may once have inhabited the cell. For the
and replayed. Limited by the boundary the sustained
viewer entering the low-lit cell the prospect to meet
redrafting reiterates ideas rather than filters them and a
the occupant infers a threat and the feeling of unease
blended ambiguous mass of information is created. These
intensifies. The drawing literally transfers its former inmate
scripted hybrids are literally translated and throughout
back into the cell where an encounter with the past is
the show were performed. This vocative expression is
re-projected into the present. Sally Taylor’s contribution
directed from the paper to become sounded. This eludes
also works with the idea of a re-imagined space. Her
the imposed limits where the sounded acts mark out
practice is generated in a series that employs repeated
the intentions and set forth new expressions. Hanna Ten
motives that frequently depict heads. These talk of a serial
Doornkaat’s performance work for the Prison Project is
discourse, which virtually chatter amongst themselves.
durational and autobiographic. She repeatedly writes
For the Prison Project she brings numerous drawings
the word me that references yet masks the maker by its
together indicative of the workings of her studio. Here
repetitive notations. The walls of the cell are likened to
the drawings reside in the space/studio nodding to its
the enclosure of a cave where the process can be seen
confines as a constricted domain. Shelley Theodore
as drawing oneself out and notes the primal activity of
is concerned with the act of looking and often draws
drawing that mutually marks presence and constructs
attention to over-looked aspects of lived experiences. For
narrative. Tracy Himsworth employs and magnifies
the Prison Project she brings together memories of her
drawings physical gestures, performing a walk that is
grandfather who was captured in the Second World War.
intended to open a dialogue with the surroundings. These
The work brings together memories, gathered images
‘performed’ drawings are utilised to make discoveries
and conversations held across an ironing board.
within the space, to encounter and reside within it. Tracy records the lines she walks as both two and three-
Myself, Greig Burgoyne, Hanna Ten Doornkaat and Tracy
dimensional drawings. For The Prison Drawing Project
Himsworth all work with drawing’s live or durational
her explorations of the prison were mapped and the
qualities, clustered here for our shared preoccupations
configuration of the rectangular shapes were recorded.
with performance. For Greig Burgoyne his performance
These drawings are reworked, physically charted into
was documented and shown as video projected back into
three-dimensional lines that occupy the cell proposing
the cell. The work titled Bad drawing/paper cell plays in
a compressed experience of the walk for others to enter.
the absurd and sets the impossible... to escape from the
Certain areas of the three-dimensional drawings were
reality of the cell. He covers the walls with paper in a bid
covered with an ultramarine paint pigment. This addition
to negate its restraints, explaining “In its attempts to extol
of intense colour created added reverberations of
drawing as an act of covering (like shading) the space
spatial divisions that questioned tangible and boundary
Bad drawing/paper cell will test drawing paradoxically as
perceptions
a means to open up and liberate oneself from the space albeit during the process of trying to cover the space and being potentially submerged by the paper as a result”. In my own work I drew a parallel between the roles of the paper drawing support and that of the enclosed prison
Photo Credit: Mike Ambler (mikeambler@yahoo.co.uk)
0 0 0 3
0 0 0 4
A N D Y
K A T E
G R E I G
A N D R E W
B L A C K
B L A C K
B U R G O Y N E
C H E E T H A M
0 0 0 5
0 0 0 6
0 0 0 7
0 0 0 8
F I O N A
C A T H E R I N E
T R A C Y
N I C O L A
G R A D Y
A N Y A N G O
H I M S W O R T H
H O L L O W A Y
0 0 1 1
0 0 1 2
G R ü N E W A L D
0 0 0 9
0 0 1 0
E V Y
L U C Y
R A C H E L
R U S S E L L
J O K H O V A
O ’ D O N N E L L
R E N W I C K
S M I T H
0 0 1 3
0 0 1 4
0 0 1 5
0 0 1 6
S A L L Y
H A N N A
S H E L L E Y
A P R I L
T A Y L O R
T E N
T H E O D O R E
V I R G O E
D O O R N K A A T
I N M A T E S
0 0 0 2
T H E
0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1 A N D Y
B L A C K
I have drawings of around a hundred forms collected together in a small book. Some of these forms are objects from the landscape – trees, bushes, rocks, mountains, lakes. Some are reminiscent of topiary or architecture. Others are sharp-edged and geometric or more amorphous and blobby. All the forms are real in that they obey gravity and are rooted to the ground. These forms (to steal Philip Guston’s idea) are my alphabet. These provide the material of a series of drawings that at the moment seems limitless. There are other constants too: I work in black and white; the forms are plotted onto perspectival grid so that we have an aerial viewpoint over a territory that recedes deep into the distance but has no horizon; a strong evening light illuminates the drawing so that each form casts a long dark shadow. In the studio, with these set constraints and door shut to other variables, I construct drawings of imagined exterior spaces. I think of them as drawings of gardens. Some are systematically planned with formal, abstract patterns. Others are allowed to become overgrown where the forms, like weeds, multiply and compete for space. In making the drawings the forms’ contrasts of shape, tone, texture and their ambiguity of scale demand my attention. Once completed, I can look down to survey a whole constructed world. I imagine being down on the ground exploring the pockets of space and paths between the details. More recently I’ve begun making wall drawings that begin to explore other spatial possibilities – not only an increase in scale but also how the drawings might be configured to a specific three dimensional space.
Website andyblackart.com
0 0 0 2 K A T E
B L A C K
My drawings illustrate an internal world depicting scenes from an invented, strange soap opera. Signs, symbols and shapes transport characters into uncanny and surreal worlds; they are portals into narratives that I imagine to be like ‘Coronation Street’ on acid. This drawing responds to the particular context of the cell. Beneath the ground, men (miners, pot-holers or escapees) dig tunnels like moles, sometimes getting stuck or lodged beneath the surface trying to find a way out of here.
Email kate@kateblackillustration.co.uk Twitter @KateBlackUK Website kateblackillustration.co.uk
0 0 0 3 G R E I G
B U R G O Y N E
‘Only when we move do we see the chains’ Rosa Luxemburg Bad drawing / paper cell is a site specific drawing performance presented as a film grafted onto the space that is the cell. It takes the notion of drawing as a form of covering and measurement, into an immersive act of attempted liberation. Measuring, using rolls of paper, the film chronicles what could be seen as a bad day wallpapering a space, no assistants, paste or ladders just a desire to cover and negate the cell. Only stopping when exhausted, Burgoyne offers the viewer a spectacle of endurance undaunted by a failure doomed from the start. In his attempts to be free of the cell, he is potentially submerged in the paper as a result. The outcome is a film projected across the cell walls that unites the tension between the restricted, solid space with a fluidity and potential of the performative act. Consequently, the grounded and static of the prison cell could in doubt and liberation may indeed be possible. In his work Burgoyne combines office materials ranging from post-it notes to highlighter pens and photocopy paper, alongside process led, rule based repetition, endurance, accumulation and duration. Taking anomalies of the space, he seeks to test or expand alternative body/ site relations with regard to space and thinking. The results in the form of wall drawing, films, performances and installations, propose new dialogues and frameworks that aim to generate a condition of becoming, translation and flux instead of stasis; a site of experience rather than merely location. Greig Burgoyne was born in Glasgow, studied at the HAK Vienna and MA painting Royal College of Art London. Recent Solo projects include Scapelands DrawingBox Belgium; WhiteNoise Centre for Recent Drawing London; Gapfillers Briggait project spaces 1+2 Wasps studios Glasgow; Apparatus L’Escaut Architectures Brussels; FAX Karst Plymouth (Curated by The Drawing centre New York); OMON RA the drawing project IADT Dublin. Forthcoming projects in 2016 include WhiteNoise the
Email greigburgoyne@btinternet.com
book published by Marmalade visual theory; La Brasserie
Twitter @greigburgoyne
Centre D’art Contemporain Fonquevillers France; Patricia
YouTube Greig Burgoyne
Fleming Glasgow; La Confection Idéale Tourcoing France
Website greigburgoyne.com
watch the video
0 0 0 4 A N D R E W
C H E E T H A M
My paintings and drawings could be described as documentary as I prefer to work from life. For the Prison Drawing Project I spent several days working in one of the cells, drawing. The figure happens to be me because I was the only model available. It is not intended as a selfportrait but as a presence, a sense of someone who once occupied the space. Andrew Cheetham (born 1971, Heywood, Lancashire) studied Art at Manchester Polytechnic, Liverpool John Moores University and Central St. Martins College of Art. Andrew has been recording the Scarborough Fishing Industry since 2000 renting a Net Loft on the harbour as a studio and accompanying the Fishermen out to sea. Throughout this time the sea has been a constant in his work. He has been Artist-in-Residence at Knaresborough Castle and in Rosedale on the North York Moors. Recent exhibitions include ‘Art and Yorkshire: From Turner to Hockney’, Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate.
Website andrewcheetham.com
0 0 0 5 F I O N A
G R A D Y
Fiona Grady creates large site-responsive drawings on walls, windows and floors using sequences of dispersing geometric shapes. Her practice recognizes the relationship between architecture, installation art and decoration; often using traditional mediums in a modern context. She plays with light, surface and scale; each piece changes with the light of day emphasizing the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of the work. For the Prison Drawing Project the artist will create ‘Counting the Days’ an immersive wall drawing in one of the prison cells. This drawing will reference the romantic notion of a prisoner scratching a tally of the days spent in confinement. Composed from fragile lines of glossy paint, applied directly onto the walls, the colours will brighten when reflecting light and create a restful ambiance. Her artwork will investigate the ability of geometry to transform a space; the lines will seemingly escape their setting. Fiona Grady (born 1984, Leeds) studied BA Fine Art at the University of Wales In Cardiff (UWIC) 2004-2007 before completing as Masters degree in Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art (UAL) 2010- 2011. Grady has been shortlisted for several printmaking prizes including Neo-print Prize 2014, Bainbridge Open 2012 and Clifford Chance’s Survey of MA printmaking 2011. Her public commissions include Deptford Rail Station, Beacons Music Festival, Leeds Town Hall and Jealous Gallery Rooftop Mural Project. She has had recent solo exhibitions ‘Fields of Light’ at Barbican Arts Trust (2014) and ‘Tempered Deflections’ (2015) at Footfall Arts, London. Her work is owned in private and public collections.
Instagram @fiona_grady Twitter @fiona_grady Website fionagrady.co.uk
0 0 0 6 C A T H E R I N E A N Y A N G O G R ü N E W A L D The Phantom of The Forest This work responds to the idea of a prison cell as an interior that is defined by an exterior. The prisoner is in this space because of acts committed outside of it, and also usually wishes to be outside it. The title refers to the fugitive and murderer Barry Prudom who evaded capture for 18 days in 1982 in Dalby forest near Scarborough. Exterior crime scenes demand the understanding of a space that is at the limit of our knowledge. They are often hinterlands - it is telling that the murders by Brady and Hindley are known as the Moors murders. The act of crime, horrific enough, is also made mentally unnavigable, and the unknown is always a source of fear or dread. Crime collapses borders between inside and outside - it intrudes into the home, or it scatters the home outside. The drawing recreates this inversion of interior and exterior space, and the feeling of being confronted with a vast exterior when entering a tiny cell creates a cognitive dissonance. Catherine Anyango Grünewald is a Swedish/Kenyan artist and a Tutor in Visual Research at the Royal College of Art She studied at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, followed by a Masters in Modern Literature at UCL. She has published, lectured and exhibited internationally and is represented by the Riflemaker gallery. In 2010 her graphic novel adaptation of Heart of Darkness was awarded the Observer’s Graphic Novel of the Month. Research areas include drawing and its relationship to power, horror and crime and femininity, domesticity and the abject. She is interested in the physical manifestation of emotional phenomena and the emotional disruption of public and private space.
Website catherine-anyango.com
0 0 0 7 T R A C Y
H I M S W O R T H
Line as fact Documentation Record Movement Place Time Measurement The act of drawing is the central concern in my work, it is a way of opening up a dialogue between myself the things and places around me. I use drawing as a form of discovery and documentation, the sketch map becomes a mental record of my movement through interior and exterior spaces. Using self imposed rules I record the lines I walk by creating graphic two and three dimensional line drawings. In this piece of work I mapped my movements around the prison, getting to know the space, I found myself repeatedly walking a rectangular shape. These simple facts and linear measurements of my activity now take the form of a three dimensional drawing that is habitable. A space for you, the viewer, now to walk through.
Email tracylynnhimsworth@yahoo.co.uk Website tracyhimsworth.com
0 0 0 8 N I C O L A
H O L L O W A Y
My works seek to “find form” within historically charged spaces, to trace the historic residue of site, in which, transient memories can emerge from the space. Through the creation of an environment that unites feelings of experience, the drawings seek to reveal hidden narratives from the historical residue of walls, in this instance the cell walls, in which experience and the ‘human trace’ emerge. My drawings have a fluid aspect to them, within them, nothing is defined. They make us aware of the desire to name what we are seeing. I have become interested in this idea of ambiguity within a piece of work, as, without ambiguity, it can be suggested that an artwork lacks depth. Through this added level of ambiguity, a piece of work can be read on many different levels, it requires us to actively use our own perceptions, ideas, and judgments to find meaning. The repetition within the works is not a means of deadening it, but rather to heighten the viewing experience, just as the material trace is not opposed by notions of infinity, but rather it is rescued by it. Rather than constraining difference though the act of repetition through a similar variable, the act of repetition exacerbates the maximum difference, with no two organic surface responses being the same, leading to an increase of variable outcomes. Each work is a unique response to its architectural environment.
Instagram @nicolahollowayart Website nicolaholloway.com
0 0 0 9 E V Y
J O K H O V A
Evy Jokhova is a multi disciplinary artist whose practice engages with dialogue and relationships between Social anthropology, Architecture, Philosophy and Art. Working with drawing, painting, installation, photography, film, participatory events and artist books, Jokhova aims to bridge gaps between these fields and their inherent hierarchical structures creating work in the expanded context of interdisciplinary research projects. Born in Switzerland to Russian parents, Jokhova lived in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Austria and Estonia before moving to London, UK where she currently lives and works. Her multi cultural background and exposure to diverse social and political structures in altering states of flux and stability form the backbone of Jokhova’s research and practice. In 2013 Jokhova completed MA in Political Communications, Goldsmiths College with an anthropological research project on media influences and the sense of political belonging in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia; and in 2011 she completed an MA in Fine Art, Royal College of Art with a final thesis on the ontological question of being in architectural space. Her practice is research driven by investigations into relationships between things, the creation of social systems, and how social behaviour can be altered through architectural construction, with reference to the postCartesian ontological question of being in space (M. Heidegger, J-L. Nancy, Ian James, M. Foucault) and the relationship between building, body and mind (Bertrand Russell, Bill Hillier, Vitruvius). Jokhova’s projects are often supported by anthropological fieldwork and interviews. Engaging with the everyday as well as possible and impossible futures as imagined by architects, city planners, historians and politicians, Jokhova surveys the disparity between plan and reality using a paired down aesthetic of a muted palette, creating objects of an ambiguous materiality, drawing into landscape and architectural space. Exploring social narratives and remembered ‘truths’, Jokhova questions her own subjective role in and relationship to society, history, landscape and architecture.
Twitter @EvyJokhova Website evyjokhova.co.uk
0 0 1 0 L U C Y
O ’ D O N N E L L
My practice interrogates the possibilities of drawing as both a process and an outcome. Looking towards material as a type of device that carries particular interpretations, I work to revisit supposed conventions and expectations of drawing to test its conceptual elasticity. For the Prison Project I have focused upon the parallel roles of the paper drawing support and that of the enclosed prison cell as jointly restricted spaces where activities are always conscious of their boundaries. This work incorporates explorations from my practice-led PhD that looked towards the inscriptive and expressive parallels of drawing and writing, becoming drawing/ writing. This research identified wonder as a crucial occurrence to review the potential of a drawing/writing hybrid as poetic, where by looking and reading become united and challenge syntactical rules to make alternative interpretations. This opens new possibilities for the poetic inscriptions to become sounded and performed. For the Prison Project the drawing/writing inscriptions and their wondering navigation(s) become the focus of the work. By repeatedly redrafting the pages of my thesis, the paper becomes a type of constituent where thoughts are caught, overlaid and replayed within its flat boundaries. This process makes reference to the confined space of both the page and the cell as a limited place to play out thinking. This concept informs the process of redrafting, as a process that to an extent recovers its position from ambiguity, however in this instance creates a blended mass of information. Here the sustained redrafting obliterates the typed text and image, drawing out an alternative marked semiosis. During the exhibition these drawing/writing hybrid works will be performed as live rephrased gestures.
York St.John’s University Profile bit.ly/1R3DCDk Loughborough Project Space bit.ly/1LMN5wu
0 0 1 1 R A C H E L
R E N W I C K
My work is primarily centred on drawing and repetitive mark making, using a range of media and often involving found or pre-marked materials. In switching between abstraction and representation simultaneously, I hope to emphasise the significance of process and materials over subject matter. I am interested in the reaction to self imposed rules or rituals as part of the making process and aim to explore the balance between intuition and control as a response to such invented structures. I consider the grid to be a visual representation of the rule or structure on which my work is based and often use this framework as a foundation for my drawings. Within my most recent work I have started to explore themes of dialogue between different processes or repetitive doodling which I refer to as ‘visual phrases’. These interactions, whilst dictated by an invented system, playfully investigate the intrinsic qualities of the materials and techniques being employed, how they attack or repel one another, and also how they can be manipulated to do what is unexpected of them. These drawn conversations seek to formalise and add a sense of directness to the confusing territory of human communication from where they take inspiration.
Website rachelrenwick.co.uk
0 0 1 2 R U S S E L L
S M I T H
“Confinement, regulation and excessive work have no effect but to develop in these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitration� - Dostoyevsky The original intention of a prison cell is as a habitable space designed to oppress its occupant and enforce reformation. This archaic impression is what I am challenging with my work; I want to turn the cell into a place of tranquil serenity. I am intending to achieve this through the process of drawing a picturesque landscape of mountains captured in the South of France onto the walls of the cell. The stereotypical thought of a prisoner in a prison cell is of a human being enclosed behind bars, subverting this premise; I have drawn the serene imagery in lines to represent the stereotypical barred entrapment but again juxtaposing the reality of a prisoners experience behind said bars, using the bars to create the tranquil imagery, instead of creating imagery of oppression. When experienced I found the imagery to be very meditative and by using it, hope to turn the cell into a place of reflection. Thus creating a forbidden enjoyment to be experienced by the installation visitors, to contrast with the profound hatred this cell would have experienced from its original inhabitants.
Email russell.smith2@stu.mmu.ac.uk
0 0 1 3 S A L L Y My drawings affirm a desire to understand more about human relationships, specifically my own interaction with others. They are equally about forming a balance between formal concerns in relation to the communication of emotional resonance. Recent work has developed into an investigation of the dynamics of social groups – particularly how hierarchies emerge, how roles are assumed and behaviours are managed. The work aims to investigate these processes that appear to be rooted simultaneously in latent predispositions; revealing ‘unknown’ and unpredictable subjective experiences. Recurring motifs of triangles and ‘smiling mouths’ aim to explore Louise Bourgeois’ statement ‘triangles mean danger’ alongside social constructs surrounding the unsaid and non-verbal interaction. Sally Taylor (b. 1977, Bury, Lancashire) studied BA Fine Art: Practice & Theory (1995-98), MA Studio Practice (19992000) Lancaster University. Selected group exhibitions include: London Art Fair, Rabley Contemporary, London (2016, 2015), To Draw is to be Human, Crescent Arts, Scarborough, South Square Gallery, Bradford (2015), Sketchbook Today, University of Northampton (2015), Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 ‘Highly Commended’, Jerwood Space, London and UK tour (2014-15), Derwent Art Prize 2014, Mall Galleries, London (2014), Paint Like You Mean It, Interview Room 11, Edinburgh (2014), Sketch 2013, Rabley Contemporary Drawing Centre, Wiltshire and UK tour (2013-14). Solo exhibitions include: Confused Heads, Duckett and Jeffreys, North Yorkshire (2013), All Say The Same, Ryedale Folk Museum, North Yorkshire (2011), Marks and Mouths, PS2, MIMA – Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2010-11). Work included in Drawing Paper #6, co-curated with Tate Liverpool to coincide with the Liverpool Biennial (2012), Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, 2009, 2004, Afternoon Tea, 54th Venice Biennale with WW Gallery, London (2011). Recently awarded Grants for the Arts funding to work with leading practitioners / curators in contemporary drawing. She is a Lecturer at York St John University and lives and works in North Yorkshire.
T A Y L O R
0 0 1 4 T E N
H A N N A D O O R N K A A T
FROZEN TIME A self portrait by Hanna ten Doornkaat is a durational drawing combining concept and experimental process By writing and rewriting the word ‘me’ over and over again onto the walls of the cell until both the walls and the word ‘me’ are completely obscured the cell becomes the artist and the artist becomes the cell. Those very walls become a metaphor for the artist’s skin and a self-portrait is written/drawn onto and into the cell. Confinement to a prison cell or ‘doing time’ means that the passage of time, of the days, weeks, months, years is ‘frozen time’. The only thing to do is to claim the space and by doing so make it the prisoner’s/artist’s own. The writing/drawing on the wall thus becomes a substitute for the self and when the time has been done it is returned to its original blank/timeless state. The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre claimed that man is a creature haunted by a vision of completion but the message here when taking Buddhist ideology as a guidance is that nothing is permanent and all things are in flux and only temporary, a plateau but not a summit. It makes us think of what, if anything, makes us or anything permanent. Neither our domination of the world, nor our privileged place in the community, nor our sense of status, nothing is permanent.
Website tendoornkaat.co.uk
0 0 1 5 S H E L L E Y
T H E O D O R E
Title: Reverse My current practice includes drawing, collage, photography and film. What brings the work together is concern with the ‘act of looking’ as a means of training attention on my own experience and indirectly the viewing experience. The main focus for this attention is to bring overlooked aspects of lived experience into view and to translate experiences that are perhaps unconscious in part. I have also found that obscuring the image can draw attention to what has been overlooked. A postcard of a suited female mannequin photographed from behind was my starting point for this project. The 1940’s style fashion reminded me of my grandmother’s wardrobe. (Vivienne Westwood Archive, V&A Museum) I re-photographed and framed the image in reverse revealing the inside of the frame. I made 100 photocopies of this picture and its frame in red ink and pressed each print with an iron. I thought of my grandfather in Changi Prison Singapore during the Second World War. He was an Australian soldier captured by the Japanese. His story was communicated to me by conversations with my mother across an ironing board during my childhood. He did not come back from the war. I thought of my mother’s tears and of her anguish. These themes of psychological and individual isolation and loss resonate within the work and within the Dean Road installation.
Twitter @shelleytheodore Website axisweb.org/p/shelleytheodore
0 0 1 6 A P R I L
V I R G O E
Some years ago I visited the barracks at Berwick upon Tweed and I was struck by the drawings and messages that had been stencilled onto the ceiling by soldiers. These drawings were made by holding a flame beneath the stencil, leaving a sooty deposit. The drawings are crude, small and simplistic - but they are striking and carry an emotional charge. These drawings are evidence of the human need to leave a trace, to make something as fleeting as smoke remain a little longer. An attempt to fix or mark time, to hold time in place as the days, weeks and months slip by. With an elegant resignation to the limits of the materials at hand, the soldiers found distraction and perhaps escape. The soot is as ephemeral as its source, and the resulting drawings are often indistinct, dreamlike and, until fixed, can disappear with a touch. This series of small scale smoke stencil, or fumage, drawings are derived from architectural spaces, but barely recognisable, and read more as fantastical; architecture of the mind rather than the world. This series of drawings focuses on details such as stairs and windows – places of transition and escape, exits and entrances that could take you outside or on a labyrinthine journey back to where you began.
Twitter @AprilVirgoe Website axisweb.org/p/aprilvirgoe
On behalf of the Prison Drawing Project, I would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for their help and support.
Wendy Holroyd and the Create team Rowena Marsden, James Atthews and Scarborough Borough Council Arts Council England Holly and Klaire Jamsworth • Design and catering Jon Wooton • Electrical services Phil Grundon • Catalogue Design Mike Ambler • Photography Andrew Cheetham • Artist photography and technician Andy Black • Social media and administration Kate Black • Coordination and management of the project with Tracy Himsworth Dr Lucy O’Donnell • Introduction All the amazing artists who made this project happen! Finally and not least, the 1,400 visitors.
Tracy Himsworth • Lead artist March 2016