The theme of this work made me think of mortality, of the transient nature of existence, how as soon as something has happened it is already an imperfect recollection from singular perspectives. Of how, as you move through life, certain places have enduring significance and others fade. Of how you leave a significant or fleeting trace of yourself on the places and lives you pass through and how that trace is dependent on whether it is remembered or recorded somehow. Of how it is impossible to know at the time what will or won’t have meaning later.
In order to note my current environment I have recorded places and people who are significant to me now. Whether they will continue to be so, and whether I, as archivist of these moments, am, or will continue to be, significant to them, is unknown. Perhaps one of the strangers in the pub scene is yet to become significant.
The brief was to produce work of 30cmx30cm. I have a sketchpad which is only 30cm along its shortest side if I don’t take it out using the perforations. While debating if it would be acceptable to tear the pages out along the spiral binding, or if I should use some larger loose paper and cut it down, I hit upon the idea that incorporating the holes where the binding had been would leave the paper with a pleasing hint of its own heritage, beyond the marks I would make on it. This seemed to fit the brief well and made me smile.
Each of my drawings was done from life, each taking about thirty minutes, with the aim of creating an immediacy and a sense of moment. They were drawn directly in waterproof ink in order to represent the permanent nature of momentary actions that will resonate into the future. A line is drawn, another truth exists, and it is already a memory available to be seen and interpreted by anyone who encounters it. Of course, this permanence of line would allow it to be worked over by my collaborators without it interfering with their work. Perhaps water based ink would have been more appropriate, as it may have bled into the subsequent work of my fellow artists and so my marks would become transformed, invisible even, but still an inextricable part of the larger evolution.
I have made some marks that I wish I hadn’t, and there is a small tear in one picture where I removed it from the pad. These cannot be undone, I have some regret about them, and given my time over I hope I’d act differently. Other people may like them, or not notice them, or dislike lines that I like. This all seemed a fair and correctly proportioned metaphor for life
Drawn Dialogues 