Recall

This series began in August 2023 prompted by making a drawing a day for #drawingaugust. Posted on X (#twitter) and Threads. Each one is created from a space and moment seen, remembered and imagined, although the images use an abstract visual language,

Each is made with Caran D’Ache Neocolor II water soluble pastels on A4 Clairefontaine 250gsm mix media paper.  These have proved great in enabling quick changes as they develop.

I found it harder to make these drawings as the series developed. It seems to me they got over detailed and tight, too busy and fussy. But maybe I’m judging them like paintings. These are drawings, workouts, where fast decisions can be made, and changes enacted with ease.

The image source for these drawings comes from the visual schema in my mind’s eye – but what about the language of depiction? Proto-cubist – but that’s 100 years old. Comic book line – Would that be more contemporary? Schematic shapes, sillouette forms all go into the mix.

The materiality and process of working with these Neocolor II pastels on tinted paper is exciting and I am able to push and pull the image.

I want the work to be open and ambiguous enough to allow the viewer room to interpret the images, to read and relate them to their own experience and therefore find resonance in the image’s visual qualities.

And then there is colour…. As Amy Sillman says, “Making a painting is so hard it makes you crazy.”