Informed by...
The subject areas listed below frame the standpoint from which I examine, interrogate and reflect to develop and locate my own personal discourse within a wider context. This references texts, theories and books. Full references and a reading list are located at the bottom of this page.
Drawing & The Line
I accumulate my position in relation to drawing as one of the things it can be, but not what it is.
"If you were to ask me what I do, I would say I draw. That is the primary activity and all my work has it in common, regardless of idiom or material"
Centre Pompidou, 2003. Roni Horn: Dessins/Drawings Centre Georges Pompidou Service Commercial. Pg. 27
My relation and informant to drawing lies in two areas; firstly, the activity of drawing within the act itself, and secondly, towards the line, which stems to and from drawing as practice.
Drawing is a physical engagement. It involves all the senses and is bound up in bodily enactment, extending well beyond sight/vision. It is the coalescing of thought and action exploring spatial issues which asks for a relational comprehension. This comprehension is borne out of an ‘embodied condition’ (Pallasmaa, J. 2009. Pg. 13). What is observed in drawing is ‘also mimic[ked]…with [the] muscles. (Pallasmaa, J. 2009. Pg. 90). It isn’t often termed an ‘exercise’ for no reason. How you (I) become involved in drawing is a spatial and haptic thing. This engagement is key to note because if the way drawing is attended to, its very process, is continued as a matter of extension, then this position can make anything a drawing because you (I) approached it as one.
Certain dispositions of the nature of drawing are ubiquitous within my practice. Uncertainty, a fallible demeanour, honesty, sensitivity – these are positions acquired naturally by the nature of drawing and, in turn, my practice. However, challenged by a historical hierarchy of drawing being something lesser and the confinement of a page, these are aspects of drawing practice I push back on. Less concerned with imagery and instead involving real space, I persistently look to draw with a physical intent, a physical presence.
The line ‘attests to an absolute and all-absorbing need…to keep on the move’ (May S. 2010; 1). It is borne on self-propulsion, tentatively searching, always enquiring. Everything about the line can speak of its potential, its look of curious intent, what it might touch. Searching in nature, it tapers and points to reach for its next space of focus.
Seeking to thicken the presence of the line in space has always been at the heart of my practice. ‘Extension, that is, ex-tension – leaving the surface and thus escaping surface tension – was lines next solution’ (Butler & De Zegher, 2010; 34). I view the line itself as an object. I am excited by the moments when that thin rod can wriggle into three-dimensional being and where its flexible yet fragile sculptural nature comes out to play.
With the line as sole subject, it initiates its self-concern because it is of and about itself as thing, object. Yet the line is responsive. It is also concerned with everything else in its surround because it takes its position in relation to something else; ‘the line draws on relations as much as relations draw on the line’ (Butler & De Zegher, 2010; 23). It pulls out and weighs on its surrounding space because this constitutes its space of intention. The line is constantly moving, and it is because its movement deals with space that makes it a physical subject, as material, tangible thing.
Sculpture and the bit in between
I have never identified myself as a sculptor, and I do not term my practice as sculpture. It’s a word that sticks in my throat when I go to describe my work. I can’t always bring myself to call it that, but I have felt myself softening around the word. Pronounced: skuhlp·chuh
It is undeniable, though. My work is a physical manifestation, typically three-dimensional. It has a distinct goal towards how it wants to be viewed and experienced. It is a relation to objects; the state of sculpture resides in things or thing-y-ness, these being real and tangible. It is physical stuff suggesting weight, scale, and substance. Its statehood attains reality; this physical, material thing with a corporeal presence is real; it deals with the material. My work lives in its territory. Many of the artists that inspire me identify as sculptors. Sculpture has, and will continue to, inform much of my practice.
The way this discipline utilises space is what intrigues me; it provides itself with a character and identity that comes out of its statehood, its presence. I enjoy its thing-y-ness and how it sits physically still, and we, as viewers, are required to move around it. It alters our position, commands this to occur, it necessitates our senses. Its authority, however loud or quiet, has a presence that allows it to activate and indicate things outside itself. It turns on its surroundings, using and occupying space in the most physical and tangible sense.
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So, while it is worth more than a nod to the discipline of sculpture being one of my contexts, it is how I straddle it with drawing that needs attending to.
I need the informants of drawing and sculpture close by. But between them is very fertile ground.
There is an aspect of liminality or a sense of the hinterland. Being between practices, between one form and another, between the mind and the body, interior and exterior – all the poignant understandings happen at a stage between (physicality and theoretically). You cannot have a position of ‘between’ without having two extreme ends, their informing influence is mandatory and inclined to stay in recognisable contact.
Between them is a site of trans-mediation and a space for them to ‘critically interrogate each other (Lovatt, 2012: 7) I like how they prod and poke at one another as a space for ‘possibility, exchange, comparatives and alternatives’ (Fisher 7 Fortnum, 2013; 12). It creates a fluid status, something inarticulate that affirms its ‘knowing-unknowingness’ (Fisher 7 Fortnum, 2013; 114). Knowing in the familiarity of its relational informants, unknowing with its ambiguity in its indistinct phenomenon over what it is, or by harbouring both. The ‘between’ allows for a certain announcement of spatial occupancy. Its positioning similar to our own bodies in ‘the fact that we not only make but are also fundamentally made…[by] our relational environments’ (Art Monthly, 2014).
The Body & Embodiment
I arrived at this enquiry through an experience I struggled to make sense of. I underwent a series of medical investigations, one procedure, called a Continuous Laryngoscopy, required a tube to be inserted into my nose to look at my larynx. This line that was physically put in my head has been stuck in there metaphorically ever since. ‘What moves as a body, returns as the movement of thought.’ (Massumi, B. 2011) and so the subject of the body entered my work.
But it is not about the body, literally. It is about a sense of the body. And I say sense purposefully. We live in vessels we hardly pay attention to. I am interested in how the awareness of our bodies can be heightened. To ‘think-feel’ (Massumi, B. 2011: 44) my way about it.
In the conversation De-figuring the Body, the artist Chloe Piene says, ‘I…subject myself to all kinds of physical experiences in order to understand the subject matter…that's how I understand… it's a synthesis’ (Piene, C. 2021). Embodiment and embodied cognition are crucial to my methodologies, not just for my practice but for how I, as a person, exist in the world.
This enquiry has led me to explore the landscape of our bodies, a terrain to intuit my way around, stretching out a stable sense of anatomy and thinking beyond the head as the sole locus of knowledge. Cognitive science tells us that ‘our sense of what is real begins with and depends crucially upon our bodies’ (Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1999: 17).
‘Think of the properties of the human body that contribute to the peculiarities of our conceptual system. We have eyes and ears, arms and legs that work in certain very definitive ways and not in others. We have a visual system, with topographic maps and orientation-sensitive cells, that provides structure for our ability to conceptualize spatial relations. Our abilities to move in the ways we do and to track the motion of other things give motion a major role in our conceptual system. The fact we have muscles and use them to apply force in certain ways leads to the structure of our system of casual concepts. What is important is not just that we have bodies and that thought is somehow embodied. What is important is that the peculiar nature of our bodies shapes our very possibilities for conceptualisation and categorization.’
(Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books: 18-19).
Our embodied being is shaping us. I want to highlight that we ‘largely ignore the relevance of the living, breathing body, the foundation of our selves’ (Van Der Kolk, 2014. pg. 104) and the frequency with which our senses are ‘exploited’ and ‘undervalued’ (Pallassma, J. 2009. pg. 13). ‘When I think of my body, and what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It moves. It feels’ (Massumi, B. 2002. pg. 1). There is a way of getting to know the world that comes through touching it. I seek to reiterate this sense of touch.
Materiality matters
Touch is a low-ranked sense in Western history. And touch is associated with physical material, something ‘base’ and limited to ‘earthly cognition’ (Wagner, 2001). The construct of matter and materiality being something lesser is echoed in the subject of the body and embodiment. I pick my way through this topic because I am after moments you can grasp haptically and sense tactile differentiation.
I love that material is an ‘information carrier’ (Wagner, 2001). It is a site of ‘not only processing and integrating people’s experiences but also activating their ability to experience and sharpening their awareness’ (Export, V. 1980). It tells us things, speaks to us, and shows a way of thinking through it.
"It matters what matter we use to think other matters with"
Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the trouble (Experimental Futures): Making Kin in the Chthulucene Duke University Press Books
To circle back to the senses and touch – materials move our bodies, and our bodies move materials – which circles back around to embodiment, ‘where the principle of that materialisation is precisely what ‘matters’ about that body, it’s very intelligibility’ (Butler, J. 1993) and this reiterates our connections with materials, with the body.
For me, there is something about this gap between what we see and what we feel, the gap between our heads and our bodies, the material understanding, the bodies understanding and the cerebral understanding. But this gap contracts and shortens with ‘this act of squeezing in the space between the hands.’ Materials ‘register a whole range of touch’ (Gormley, A. 2004), and I have a deep-seated need to touch materials.
Colour & the particulars of pink
I find colour difficult. I don’t enjoy colour theory. I’d even like to say I don’t use colour, but that is not true because I do. I use a very particular colour, and that colour is pink.
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Like in David Batchelor’s essay Whitescapes, ‘there is a kind of white…’ (Chromophobia, 2000); well, in my case, there is a kind of pink. It is a chalky, edible kind of pink. I have a thing about soft pale gummy pinks, the sort of colour that makes you want to eat it. It calls upon a certain kind of tactility, visual desire maybe, or attraction. A pale pink will catch your eye. It is soft yet punchy, playful yet serious. This is a colour that comes from my gut, maybe physically as well as figuratively. It is an internal intuition.
I had a conversation about our use of the colour pink with artist Natasha Macvoy that neither of us would have touched pink as a child (wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole), and yet now we find ourselves swimming in the colour pink.
Pink comes with problems. It’s gendered. It’s shorthand for feminine. It references white skin tones. It’s cosmetic. Colour ‘evokes innumerable readings’ (Albers, J. 2006: 1). There is a narrow window of pink I am interested in; stray too far one way, and its paleness disappears into nothingness like a weak, flavourless milkshake. Stray too far from another, and it becomes something sickly and luminescent. And if you jump over the plastic land of pink, you’ll land somewhere in the world of red.
‘We see colours as inhering in things’ (Lakoff, G. & Johnson M. 1999:23), inhering meaning to ‘exist permanently and inseparably in. Artist Olivia Bax talks of making colour an ‘integral component rather than a surface treatment’ (Browns, 2022) I think this particular pink is inhered in my practice. It is the physicality of its attachment. Something you see and feel, ‘seeing colour action as well as feeling colour relatedness’ (Albers, J. 2006: 1). Something physical happens when a colour feels right. Something about it moves you or feels embedded in your muscles. However, ‘unlike form and shape, the visual experience of colour cannot be verified by our senses. We cannot touch colour, even though it constantly surrounds us and we are in some ways touched by it.’ (Batchelor, D: 19) And this particular pink does touch us with a feeling of sensory experience. Because pink is sensuous, and my works deal with a feeling of sensing.
Exercise
With a background in teaching exercise, specifically Pilates, there are facets and feelings that percolate from the periphery of my exercise practice into my artistic practice. I used to keep them as distinctly separate parts of my life, but coming to this MA, I have been slowly letting them come closer.
Some things I draw relation to when thinking about their proximity,
Drawing exercises
The way I make is like an exercise
Remove the health and activity bit of exercise and what you are left with is ‘an activity requiring physical effort’ or ‘an activity carried out for a specific purpose’ to ‘use or apply.’
This is not a context I theorise over. It is more a mode of lived experience, not deliberate but present. It applies a similar kind of working through or reference to postures and the way muscles are held. It holds space for a felt relationship with the body as a mode of self-knowledge.
Looking at anatomy, forms, functions, apparatus, props
Things for the body
To extend the body
Things you hold
Teaching queues
References
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Drawing & The Line
Butler C. (1999) Afterimage: Drawing Through Process. MIT Press
Butler C. and De Zegher C. (2010) On Line: Drawing through the twentieth Century. MOMA, New York
Cain, P. (2010) Drawing: The Enactive Evolution of The Practitioner. Bristol: Intellect.
Centre Pompidou, 2003. Roni Horn: Dessins/Drawings Centre Georges Pompidou Service Commercial.
Dillon, B. (2009) The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing. Hayward Gallery Publishing
Drawing Room (2012) Drawing: Sculpture - Drawing Across and Between Media. Drawing Room, London, and Leeds Art Gallery
Gross, J. (2015) Drawing Redefined: Roni Horn, Esther Kläs, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Richard Tuttle, Jorinde Voigt. Lincoln, Massachusetts: DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Klee, P. (1961) The Thinking Eye: The Notebooks of Paul Klee. London: Lund Humphries.
Krcma, E J. (2007) Drawing Time: Trace, Materiality and the Body in Drawing After 1940. UMI Dissertation Publishing
Lisson Gallery, (2016) Line, Lisson Gallery London, 22 January – 12 March 2016 (exhibition catalogue) Lisson Gallery
May, S. (2010) Kupferstichkabinett /between though and action. London: White Cube.
Pallasmaa, J. (2009) The thinking hand: existential and embodied wisdom in architecture. Hoboken, N.J.; Chichester: Wiley; John Wiley [distributor].
Rattemeyer, C. (2013) Vitamin D2: new perspectives in drawing. London: Phaidon.
Sokolowski, R. (1984) Joel Fisher: between two & three dimensions. Luzern: Kunstmuseum.
Valli, M. and Ibarra, A. (2013) Walk the Line: the art of drawing. London: Laurence King.
Vitamin D : New Perspectives in Drawing (2005) London: Phaidon.
Volker, A. and Clemens, K. (2010) Linie, line, linea. Contemporary Drawing DuMont Buchverlag
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Drawing Room (2013) Drawing: Sculpture (online) Available from: https://drawingroom.org.uk/exhibitions/drawing-sculpture (accessed 29/04/2022)
Drawing Room (2021) De-Figuring the Body with Paul Noble, Chloe Piene & Aura Satz (online) Available from:
https://drawingroom.org.uk/resources/de-figuring-the-body-with-paul-noble-chloe-piene-aura-satz (accessed 22/04/2022)
The Edit Site (2022) Drawing (online) Available from: https://www.theedit.site/drawing (accessed 21/03/2022)
​Marian Goodman, (2006) Freeing the Line (online) Available at, https://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/310-freeing-the-line/ (Accessed: 17/01/2022)
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Drawing Room (2022) Drawing Research Forum 2021/22 Sessions - Part 2 (live online forum event) 4th March 2022
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Sculpture and the bit between
Art Monthly (2014) Subjects v Objects. Art Monthly: March 2014 Issue
A Quiet Revolution: British sculpture since 1965 (1987) London: Thames & Hudson.
Battcock, G. (no date) Minimal art. London: Studio Vista.
Condition of sculpture: a selection of recent sculpture by younger British & foreign artists (1975) London: Arts Council Gb.
Ellegood, A. (2009) Vitamin 3-D: new perspectives in sculpture and installation. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.
Fisher, E & Fortnum, R. (2013) On Not Knowing: How Artists Think. Black Dog Publishing, London UK
Herbert, M., Strang, M. and MacDonald, F. (2013) Thinking is making: presence and absence in contemporary sculpture. London: Black Dog.
Lovatt, A. (2012) Drawing: Sculpture – Drawing Across and Between Media. Drawing Room, London, and Leeds Art Gallery
Molesworth, H. (2005) Part Object Part Sculpture. Pennsylvania State University Press
Moszynska, A. (2013) Sculpture now. London: Thames & Hudson. (World of art).
Museum Morsbroich and Kreuzer, S. (ed.) (2011) Frauenzimmer. Kerber.
Oliveira, N.d. (2003) Installation art in the new millennium: the empire of the senses. London: Thames and Hudson.
Sokolowski, R. (1984) Joel Fisher: between two & three dimensions. Luzern: Kunstmuseum.Southbank Centre (1993) The Body of Drawing - Drawing by Sculptors (South Bank Centre National Touring Exhibition 1993)
Weir, K. (no date) Sculpture is everything.
Wood, J. (2008) Mark Wilsher: unfinished business. Leeds: Henry Moore Institute
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The Body & Embodiment
Lakoff, G. (1999) Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York, Basic Books.
Manning, E. & Massumi, B. (2014) Thought in the act: passages in the ecology of experience. University Of Minnesota Press
Massumi, B. (2002) Parables for the virtual: movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC; Duke University Press
Pallasmaa, J. (2009) The thinking hand: existential and embodied wisdom in architecture. Hoboken, N.J.; Chichester: Wiley; John Wiley [distributor].
Van Der Kolk (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin
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Manning, E. (2007) Housing the Body (online) Available from: http://erinmovement.com/housing-the-body (accessed: 04/05/2022)
Piene, C. 2021. De-Figuring The Body with Paul Noble, Chloe Piene & Aura Satz (online) Thursday, 21 Oct 2021, online talk. Available from: https://drawingroom.org.uk/resources/de-figuring-the-body-with-paul-noble-chloe-piene-aura-satz (accessed 22/04/2022)
TED (2017) Embodied Learning Camille Litalien TEDxUSU (online) Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/camille_litalien_embodied_learning/transcript?language=en (accessed 04/05/2022)
Psychology Tomorrow (2012) Feeling Pina: How the Choreographer Moved People (online) Available from: https://psychologytomorrowmagazine.com/feeling-pina-how-the-choreographer-moved-people/ (accessed 06/05/2022)
Kinda Studios Designing for Embodied Experiences (online) Available from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Z6oEKiyBpvr8MzyNkRdSUpBuj-5aDOO/view (accessed 17/05/2022)
Kinda Studios (2022) Kinda Studios (online) Available from: https://www.kindastudios.com (accessed 17/05/2022)
DCulberhouse (2014) The Backbone of Creativity (online) Available from: https://dculberh.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/the-backbone-of-creativity/ (accessed 27/05/2022)
New York Times (2019) Twyla Tharp wants you to move (online) Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/arts/dance/twyla-tharp-keep-it-moving-book.html (accessed 27/05/2022)
Spring, C. (2022) Recovery from trauma (online) Available from: https://www.carolynspring.com (accessed: 25/05/2022)
Spring, C. (2022) Conversations with Carolyn Spring Podcast: #15 – Trauma is not just a distressing event. Transcript (online) Available from: https://www.carolynspring.com/podcast/trauma-is-not-just-a-distressing-event/ (accessed: 25/05/2022)
Van Der Kolk, B. (2022) The Body Keeps the Score: BRAIN, MIND, AND BODY IN THE HEALING OF TRAUMA (online) Available from: https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score (accessed: 22/04/2022)
Wikipedia (2022) Embodied Cognition (online) Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition (accessed 06/06/2022)
Henry Moore Institute, (2021) Julia Crabtree and William Evans in conversation with Laurence Sillars (online) Available at: https://www.henry-moore.org/visit/henry-moore-institute/your-visit/julia-crabtree-and-william-evans-slip-exhibition-guide (Accessed 14/01/2021)
Science Direct (2004) Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits: A meta-analysis (online) Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399903005737 (accessed 06/06/2022)
YouTube (2018) Bessel van der Kolk: Overcome Trauma with Yoga (online) Available from: https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score (accessed 06/06/2022)
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Spotify (2021) Conversations with Carolyn Spring Podcast: #15 – Trauma is not just a distressing event. (Podcast) 15/09/2021. Available from: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4oTR7iouYuBjfXDmBhpXc0?si=4d4815688ffd458a (accessed 25/05/2022)
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Julia Crabtree & William Evans: Slip (2022) (exhibition) Henry Moor Institute, Leeds, 17 September 2021 – 16 January 2022
Crook, E. (2022) Anatomy with Eleanor Crook Anatomy Course, Camberwell, UAL, 24 January 2022 – 28 February 2022
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Materiality Matters
Whitechapel Gallery (2008) Materiality: Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Gallery & MIT Press
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Colour and the particulars of pink
Albers, J. (1975) Interaction of Colour. Yale University Press
Batchelor, D. (2000) Chromophobia. Reaktion Books
Cage, J. (1999) Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism. University of California Press
Lakoff, G. (1999) Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York, Basic Books.
Whitechapel Gallery (2008) Colour: Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Gallery & MIT Press
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Winsor and Newton, (2022) Spotlight on: Pinks (online) https://www.winsornewton.com/na/articles/colours/spotlight-on-pinks/ (18/11/2022)
Winsor and Newton, (2022) Pink: a colour journey from the peaceful to the political (online)
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Exercise ​
Bostock, R. (2020) Exhale: How to Use Breathwork to Find Calm, Supercharge Your Health and Perform at Your Best. UK, Penguin Life.
Brule, D. (2020) Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork. Enliven/Atria Books.
McKeown, P. (2015) The Oxygen Advantage. Piatkus.
McKeown, P. (2021) The Breathing Cure. OxyAT Books.
Nestor, J. (2021) Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. UK, Penguin Life.
Robbins, J. (2006) A Pilates’ Primer: The Millennium Edition by Joseph Pilates. Presentation Dynamics
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Radiopedia, 2022. Radiopedia (online) Available from: https://radiopaedia.org (accessed 19/07/2022)
Radiopedia, 2022. Radiopedia: annotated anatomy of the sinuses (online) Available from: https://radiopaedia.org/play/42027/entry/752574/case/78917/studies/91810?lang=us#images (accessed 19/07/2022)