Drawing Lines Round Things
These pieces are paper pulp on embossed paper, A3. I was punching the holes sitting in the garden in the sunshine and noticed the dancing of the light from one drawing onto the next. I wonder what it is to draw around things, we draw round things in the landscape to map out possession and usefulness, I wonder what it means in drawing other than as a reflection of that delineation I am observing? Occupancy, perhaps, separation, creating illusions of separation more likely. Or maybe it creates unity? Inclusivity? Maybe it is a method of drawing kin, maybe it draws in, holds dear, keeps hold, envelopes.
These drawings are visual thinking first - the repetitive process of punching the holes is meditative but allow thinking - meditation even - on what it is to punch events, little holes in the paper. They string together to suggest line, a boundary and a border. They suggest maps, geopolitical statements, projected demarkations but move around implying they aren’t all that fixed, not really.
Isn’t that what I am trying to move away from? There are spaces between the holes, maybe that’s enough, maybe it’s about what it keeps in not what it keeps out… Membranes rather than walls, porous interactive merging points. But they do feel like lines. I am thinking as I punch, wondering about a new world order, how would we make new lines, would we even have lines? if we could erase all the lines in the Earth there would be chaos, or would it be a scorched Earth. I don’t feel I am hitting on anything especially meaningful here but I am learning to ramble with my drawings, internal ramblings, allowing free thought, asking questions, allowing things to sidle up and say hi. I am reimagining my childhood in Hong Kong in a postcolonial world, wondering where I sit in the history of me, place, how these lines were drawn, how they could be re-drawn, if they need to drawn at all, maybe just leave them blotchy and lumpy.
They also look like fairy lights. I think it’s finally time to surrender to the fairy lights…
As I do this embossing I am trying to remember the names of two artists and can’t think of either - one seen at the RA Past Entanglements show and the other did a drawing show with The Drawing Room lots of black and white, reminded me of Tacita Dean. Putting here as a note to self.
Went back through my phone and found the RA Entangled Pasts artist was Bharti Parmar and the other artist was Emma McNally.
A few lazy, quick snapshots I can tidy up later when I have more time. These taken from the Vitamin D book Today’s Best in Contemporary Drawing. Emma McNally
