Contemporary Drawing Practice
"When artistic practice becomes a means of escape, reality is something to be endured. When artistic practice is grounded in reality, reality itself becomes a source of fascination."
The practice begins with an instinctive attraction to particular places, objects and situations. Site sketches, photographs and field notes are made in response to what draws my attention, without the need for a predetermined argument.
Sometimes the significance of a place becomes apparent while I am there. More often, it emerges later in the studio, as fragments of observation are examined, compared and rearranged. This process creates time for reflection on what initially drew me to a particular subject and why certain details remained significant enough to record.
Drawing therefore becomes both an act of observation and a process of discovery. Through sustained attention, relationships, behaviours, tensions and contradictions begin to emerge from seemingly ordinary experiences. These observations are reconstructed in the studio into considered images that remain grounded in the places from which they originate.
The work is concerned with looking closely at reality rather than escaping from it. Meaning is not imposed upon the subject from the outset, but discovered through the process of observing, remembering and drawing.