Time passes, we are present only briefly. Our ‘here’ temporally changed, our ‘there’ is now a memory. We cannot have a thought without having a reference point to a past experience or a future one. Time is never linear, our minds perceive reality. My practice acknowledges this and my drawings for this project are a resting place on my temporal  journey. The additions or reductions made by other artists in this dialogue may change this visual memory’s appearance but not the experiential memory that prompted my drawing….unless we take a leap into the world of quantum mechanics and MWI ….but that’s for another ‘drawn dialogue’.  In starting this project I determined to just continue with my practice without consideration of the parameters of the project. In reality I found that considering how my drawings might be received and how I could provide surfaces and marks that enabled ease of addition, initially became foremost in my thoughts. To overcome this I had to take some time out and separate these thoughts from the drawings I made to ensure the outcomes were true to my person and to my practice. In short I created drawings in the moment, from my subconscious memory and to my mind already complete.

 

As soon as the start date of the Visual Dialogue Project was set, I went out and bought several sheets of washi, which I cut down to the 30 x 30 cm size and put them up on my wall above my studio desk. And I thought I would be able to work on the drawings throughout the month of August, but that was not so. As it turns out, this three month period from June 1 to August 31 was one of the busiest in recent years both in the studio and at work. However, I had the blank sheets of washi on the wall as a constant reminder of the project. This gave me a chance to rethink my approach to the project for this busy time period. Thinking about place, memory, and traces, I decided to collect all experiences related to those three concepts and spend this last weekend in August expressing my thoughts on five different drawings. While thinking about this project, I also considered that we are in the first leg of a yearlong project and did not want to overwork the drawings. My approach to these drawings is quite similar to how I have been making my Daily Drawings and Memory Remnants collage – working intuitively over a short time span while recalling memories and emotions. Over the last few months, my day to day studio work has been minimal due to energies devoted to new installations for two different exhibitions this summer. The Daily Drawings have occurred a bit sporadically this period, but I have maintained a daily practice with my Memory Remnants which seem to have a more direct connection to my emotions and memories due to the materials I use for those collages This is why three of the five drawings involve collage rather then pen or pencil. The other consideration I made with regards to this being the start of Visual Dialogue was to think about this first phase of the project as an icebreaker. I did not want to start off with a series of complex thoughts, but rather thought about throwing out a single proposition to begin the dialogue and see where it goes. As far as the second phase of Visual Dialogue, I am looking forward to modifying my working process to put a more consistent approach to mark making for the drawings that I will receive. I also think that I will keep my responses and extensions simple for this second phase with the idea of pushing the drawings further in the third and fourth phases as the project enters its second half.

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

IAN HILL-SMITH

I am a visual artist working in a variety of styles including mixed media landscape, watercolour portrait, reportage line drawing and caricature.

This project, particularly the memory element, lends itself to my line drawings, as they are formed quickly and of the moment. They are broad and subjective representations of a person or event, open to interpretation, and prone to developing new meaning over time.

 

 

 

PAULA FENWICK LUCAS

Paula Fenwick Lucas is an artist based at Cross Street Arts in Wigan. Much of what she makes – through assemblage, drawing, textiles and photography – explores themes of collections, the neglected and personal narratives. Paula is interested in the ‘presence’ of things, cherishing the detritus of every-day life with its moments of pathos or beauty: how the ordinary and often overlooked might be imbued with personal significance and commonplace memories. She is curious about how to repair, celebrate and articulate memories through making, manipulation and display.  These are the small incidents of a life, marked in the present.

 

JACQUI PRIESTLEY

I am interested in exploring aspects of memory and its relationship to identity and physical location, my work draws on memories of interaction with my surroundings. From the mundane to the extraordinary it engages with the idea and structures of memory traces and triggers reflecting my fascination with imperfection and impermanence. Drawing underpins much of my work but paint, three dimensional work,, photography and animation also explore the transient and temporal aspects of memory and place.

 

ARTHUR HUANG

My studio practice strives to encompass aspects of the everyday.  For me, the everyday means drawing, collecting, remembering, revisiting, and reconfiguring.  After spending several years living in Tokyo, I began to utilize the moments in our everyday life which serve as transitions from point A to point B in time and space.  Since 2013, a vital part of my studio practice involves utilizing those transitional spaces for contemplation, creation, and experience.  My current practice in these spaces involves drawing, collages, memory maps, and photography.

 

Drawn Dialogues is a collaborative, relinquished ownership project between four artists whose practice is underpinned by drawing.The Oxford English dictionary defines the act of drawing as :

v.1.1 Produce a picture or diagram by making lines and marks on paper with a pencil, pen etc.

1.2 Trace or produce a line or mark on a surface.

In its simplest form this is what drawing is. However, contemporary drawing practice can and does embrace so much more. Drawing within fine art practice has a dependence on a direct and physical process, that is it’s relationship between the artist, the medium and the surface or support.

Prior to and during this physical process we require intention. Intention directs the decisions artists make with regard to materials, scale, surface, space and compositional structure. An artists intentions bring together all of these decisions and concepts to create a cogent, complete drawing whether consciously or unconsciously. It follows then that every drawing is more than just its subject matter, it is a combination of subject and how and why the drawing has come to be.

This project seeks to explore what outcomes may be arrived at when the artists’ individual intentionality is overridden or altered by input from artists whose viewpoint is different.  What happens to a drawing when other artists intentions and decisions are added to it. when a visual drawn dialogue is encouraged and explored.

Beginning with a shared theme – ‘the subject’ – each artist will produce five drawings that are their personal interpretation of ‘memory – place – trace’. This together with a decision to work on a support that is 30cm x 30cm are the only group decisions prior to the start of the project.

Working on the drawings over a three month period each artist then forwards their drawings to the next artist in the group and so on until all artists in the group have had the opportunity to consider the work.

This blog will document, through photographs, the drawings and the on going dialogue between the work and the intentions of the artists staking part.

The project will undoubtedly throw up huge challenges for the participating artists, not least of which will be the issue of relinquished ownership and how or if they can add to the visual conversation.