Locating my Position

Drawing Something Never Seen Before!

“In prehistoric drawings, as in drawings by children or the mentally ill, the creators are all untrained; notably, surrealism was one of the first major movements to encourage visual expression by all, not just by skilled artists.”

Leslie Jones, Tracing Dreams: Surrealist Drawing 1915-1950, page 10, Drawing Surrealism

“As a strategy to combat the ‘reign of logic’ Breton offered ‘pure psychic automatism by which one proposes to express, verbally, by writing, or by any other means, the real functioning of thought…in the absence of any control exercised by reason, beyond all aesthetic or moral preoccupation’ ”

Leslie Jones, Tracing Dreams: Surrealist Drawing 1915-1950, page 9, Drawing Surrealism (Leslie referring to Andre Breton 1924)

From Automatic Drawing to Autography

“Drawing often considered a minor art form, was central to surrealism from its very beginnings. Automatic drawing, exquisite corpses and frottage are just a few of the techniques invented by surrealists to tap into the subconscious realm.....Drawing today is in many ways indebted to the expansive and innovative approach to artistic creation and the primacy of the art form encouraged by surrealism. For contemporary artists, drawing is a process more than a medium; it functions as a metaphor for experimentation and innovation that defies any strict material definition. Artists today are not limited to “making lines and marks on paper, .... Instead, drawing is an attitude, an approach motivated by experimentation and innovation that can go where no other pictorial practice can. Drawing is visual art’s very own avant-garde.

"Leslie Jones’s “Tracing Dreams: Surrealist Drawing 1915–1950”

My early drawings from the subconscious mind were produced without a realisation that these should be called Automatic drawings. In my own view, I was Creating something very New from a visual perspective. I was able to break my own past art practice of drawing from observation. When I studied more, I realised there has been been a tradition of automatic drawing in Surrealist tradition, and only a handful of artists had adapted it as the major part of their art practices. An old method was being repeated in an individual capacity without my realisation. All I found, that mind drawing was my core tool of aesthetic expression, and I wanted to keep it as part of my Creative Identity.

(THE CLASSICAL POSITIVIST APPROACH)... "the values of good line drawing are consistent across time and place in a way that painting and sculpture are not” (Craig-Martin 1995:9.) These classical positivist ideas about the universality and timelessness of drawing are reflected in the writing of Mondadori (1989) who writes of “the universal skill of (the) linear” (Mondadori, 1989:9.)" (THE MODERNIST EXPRESSIONIST APPROACH)... Whilst the classical artist saw their subject only as an object, the abstract expressionist saw only their own emotion. (Drawing in the context of contemporary philosophies: phenomenology)... IS CONTEMPORARY AND POST- CONTEMPORARY DRAWING PRACTICE MOVING TOWARDS THE INTERACTION OF THE ARTIST WITH OTHERS? Steiner (2010) expresses this as an attempt, to begin to form a post-contemporary notion of art as a “communicative interaction” (2010:.181)"

Jan Keene, Tracey, Drawing the interactive emotional relationship between artist, subject and audience, Norwich University of the Arts, Aug 2013

Jonathan Houlding

Jonathan Houlding is a practising contemporary artist. He graduated from Wimbledon School of Art and Kingston University and received a Master's Degree with distinction. Later he went to RCA, where he completed his other Master Degree and is now a visiting tutor there in their Interdisciplinary Program. When I was searching for contemporary artists whom I can relate to through my own work, I came across some drawings of Jonathan Houlding in a book on contemporary drawing (Art Today). 

The one above is also similar to that series. Jonathan Houlding is one of the few contemporary artists I found close to my own practice in different ways. This Plenum series, Black Pen & ink drawing, is described by the Victoria & Albert Museum as ''dense semi-abstract imagery (buildings, organic shapes, spirals and curves) that fills whole sheet''. The drawing was done in 2005 and later in 2007, it became a part of the ‘contemporary drawing’ collection in the V&A. Although his work has many aspects ''Jonathan worked for eight years as a set designer in the feature film industry, working alongside some of the world’s best designers and directors.'' But I am very much interested in the drawing aspects of his art practice.

About Grey Matter:

"Grey Matter began with the idea of a discussion between an upland bog and a cold war bunker. This followed initial visits by each of the artists to nuclear bunkers and high moor bogland landscapes. Grey Matter alludes to the substance in which we think and into and out of which we bring to bear our understanding of the world. It tries to pin down the representation of an interior world, a world which has no outwardly discernible or physically palpable spaces. As a narrative, Grey Matter plays out the experience of a conscious being in emergence from a state of trauma or deprivation, a body or entity moving slowly through repetitions within ill- lit environments or dim memories, towards a point of possible absurdity or non-sense, such as ‘spoon without eyes’. The inwardness of the text is resonant with the drawn representation of impossible space, the return to a colossal number of random marks, scribbles, congested layers warped and tangled together. Like the artists who made this work, the reader/the listener/the observer is left clutching at straws."

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/greymatter/

I get inspired so quickly, especially when it comes to visual arts, and I find myself very adaptive in nature. I do like lots of contemporary practices in drawing. Many artists are using creative methods in drawing today. From digital drawings (that sometimes I do myself), GPS drawings, Mark making methods, mechanically controlled drawings, and so on. Some are controlled by unique methods; for example, in one a bug makes a drawing for you, and there are lots of other different ways. In some cases, machines are used, while some are done by the artist but in more perfomative ways, like the above Penwald Drawings by Tony Orrico.

As an artist, all of the above mentioned types of drawings fascinate me. When I analyse my own drawing process, I find, using my own hand in drawing may be a traditional way of working, but the choice in using different surfaces as well as the drawn imagery itself has meanings attached to it, making it more contemporary in nature.

“Now, in the 21st century, drawing can be anything. The reasons for drawing are so disparate it is impossible to encapsulate it in few minutes. This freedom in drawing is both exciting and terrifying. As a budding artist, as someone interested in studying drawing, it is important to understand the meandering path the development of drawing has taken."

Jamie Sweetman, California

Jamie Sweetman layers multiple images to produce large and small works that are mysterious, bold and beautifully refined.

"In the famous children's story, "Harold and the Purple Crayon", a boy named Harold goes out for a walk in the moonlight - except there isn't any moon. So he draws one with his purple crayon. And since there isn't any path to walk on, he draws that, too. And pretty soon, he finds himself inventing an entire new world." Douglas Russell, explores tangled forms, in the exhibition at Bradley University's Heuser Art Gallery. "I would enjoy it if viewers got lost in it - to look into the spaces I've created and just sort of spend time existing inside of them and letting their minds wander through the spaces,".

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20120122/News/301229911#ixzz3JHQVbYoE

I found this description very close to my own heart. The process of my drawing practice has also followed similar paths of creating new worlds. First, I like to create a new world myself and let myself wander in it, and then I like to take people along with me on this journey. But the best feelings it gives me are when I see they find themselves in a new world of their own, but within my world. 

Ryan Houck is a songwriter who draws. 'Word To Flesh' are the words fleshed out in music and art, songs and comics. The above is an example of the Note-Taking aspect of contemporary drawing.

This brings me to the question: Is drawing practice a Grey Area in Contemporary Art Practice?

“The story of art emerged in the Renaissance, with artists as 'great' masters, moved through the progressive and heroic period of modernism, and has now reached the ultra self-consciousness of postmodernism, where the artist's practice has become part of a discourse that criticques rather than represents. A more extreme view, express by Jean Baudrillard, states that art can only now reiterate what has gone before. However, drawing, its process, its role and its meaning, is unique in its shared and consistent use throughout history. To some extent it remains outside, or at least beside, this narrative.” 

Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art By TRACEY

"Danto suggests that we have reached the point where we recognise its end. The story of art emerged in the Renaissance, with artists as 'great' masters, moved through the progressive and heroic period of modernism, and has now reached the ultra self-consciousness of postmodernism, where the artist's practice has become part of a discourse that criticques rather than represents. A more extreme view, express by Jean Baudrillard, states that art can only know reiterate what has gone before. However, drawing, its process, its role and its meaning, is unique in its shared and consistent use throughout history. To some extent it remains outside, or at least beside, this narrative." 

Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art By TRACEY