cup

hi everyone sorry for my late entry.

For some reason I have not been drawing much lately, but this is one sketch from my drawing assignment in the Textile department. It is a fast (quikk) drawn sketch of paper cups, carbon on white paper, size 210x297cm.

I like the way the lines are alive, the contrast between black and white, the feeling that it seems not to bee finished and for its imperfectness and also because of the subject. I drew paper cups to draw something familiar that makes me feel good and reminds my of my friends. I love paper cups, their rounded shape and how they fit nicely in your hand, and that they keep your warm drink so you can go anywhere you want.

Last winter I made a sculpture out of paper cups in my preparation course in Iceland, using the used cups from my class mates. I guess the drawing is something more to me than just lines that shape paper cups, its memories that follow the shape of the paper cup.

thank you

When the Circus Leaves Town

I feel appeal from metaphysical shapes, swirling light and heaviness of black in Sebastian Hammwohner’s ‘When the Circus Leaves Town’. The black sheet grants heaviness to brightly colored lines so it looks a very meditational moment to me. Like a psychedelic sound of universe. For Sebastian Hammwohner, blackness represents the space of artistic creation and of cosmetic infinity. He said he explores the spiritual relationship between the interior psychic self and the sublime natural world. He shows us his aim through brightly colored spirals and spheres rendered in pastel and chalk.
For Sebastian Hammwohner, his drawing materials, pastels and chalk, represents a form of dust or dirt as an accumulation of inert matter that might possibly manifest into a creation. ‘When the Circus Leaves Town’ shows me altering moment from actual moment to abstract moment.

Judge

It is not my very recent drawing but it means a lot to me.Working on this drawing made me realise unifying between my intention and accidental effect. Before this drawing, I was thinking about the judge like a witch hunt. About authoritarianism and shallowness of people easily being swept around and talking out loud.

I accidentally found the way that I can reflect this idea on my drawing in the life drawing class.It came from the frivolous poses, loud laughter and indecent talk of the model that came in for the life drawing class. Actually I felt unpleasant from her but I liked the drawing imagery of her. At that time I tried blind drawing, she gave me a chance to find an interesting shape of figure.

I decided to make the figure on right side as a victim of witch hunter and thought about to put another figure who is playing the role of a judge. I wanted to express shallowness of the public that has two different sides as being active with playing the role of a judge and also being afraid to be the opposing being. So I hoped that these two figures look similar in appearance.

I kept the imagery of right side one on my head and started drawing a judge. The victim’s figure was made accidentally but the judge was made by my intention and instinctual effect of blind drawing. And then, I finished this drawing with a variety of mark-making as following my theme.

Drawing the limits

Saul Steinberg was a Romanian born American cartoonist and illustrator whose entry to the US was sponsored by the New Yorker magazine. This picture is entitled 'View of the World from 9th Avenue'. The economy of this drawing in describing the limits of mental geography is what makes it so exciting. It speaks not only of a New York mentality but more generally of the difficulty of understanding things with which one is unfamiliar across spatial and temporal location. Steinberg alludes to the history of cartography and the importance of white space on the page, to convey both information and a lack of it. This image describes how I feel in the world.

Kathe Kollwitz, 'Woman with her dead child' (1903) etching

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This is a small section from an on-going drawing that I have started this term. (A1) Although the inspiration comes from Scottish land and seascapes and various found natural and unnatural forms, my aim was originally to create an image that does not necessarily resemble anything in particular. I took very close-up photographs of bark, rocks, decaying wood and rusted metal from old machinery; anything I happened to find that had once lived or served a purpose. Essentially, I think we all have an awareness of our mortality and this is visually evident when looking at rusting, crumbling or decomposing objects.  

Compositionally, there is a sense of space in the drawing which is pushing me towards representing this image in a landscape.  I did not start off with this intention, despite having looked at land and seascapes. I think it was more to create a single or maybe a multiple of unknown forms but I had not really considered whether it would be in a setting. As an image though, it seems to be working at the moment but I would like to see what happens if I try to loosen it up. Although the physical mark making is quick, I have found that I could spend an unlimited amount of time going over and over an image or area before even considering moving on to another section. Sometimes when drawing, the monotony of making similar marks and tones can lead to a "trance" state, the mind wanders and the work grows more organically.  This could be due to the scale of the piece and the rather unusual method of focusing on totally concentrated areas.

second encounter

I'm publishing my post rather late, but I've been thinking for a long time which picture should I choose. Finally I decided to write about "Vision after the sermon" by Paul Gauguin for few different reasons: the author was the one of the first painters who became my favourites (at least at the very early stage of interest in history of art), this picture was one of the very first downloaded from the internet (in times, when access to it was very rare thing and there were rather few such pictures available). It also gave me a big joy, when I saw it live for the first time when I didn't even expected it - in Edinburgh.
Vision after the sermon was painted in 1888 during the artistic journey to Breton, which Gauguin undertake in his early career as a painter, before later travels to Tahiti and colorful pictures of beautiful Thaitan women and landscapes of which Gauguin is the best known as I presume.
I came across information that this picture is very important because it's the first "symbolic" picture, predicting new styles in painting - symbolism and fauvism. I forgot most of the fact about Gauguin's life and I'm affraid that these information may be also not up to date today, because views on certain things are constantly changing in history of art. Therfore I will focus on the picture itself. Picture represent situation at the Sunday service in the church. The preacher tells the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel as described in the Old Testament. Situation presented on the picture happens in the mainds of listening peasant women - author literary paints vision "appearing" in their heads. For us, used to specific visual language expresing abstract activities (i.e. in graphic novels - we can see what caracter is "thinking about") vision is quite understandable but comparing to previous pictures by Gauguin it must be something outstaning in his work. Breton Women noding their heads in traditional caps are silent in devotion, strong diagonal of the tree divides picture into two realms - earthly and divine, where Jacob fights his opponent. Red background highlight belonging of this scene to the diferent world. (however such space isn't new invention. Medieval pictures or bisantine icons often used such techniques - saints and Christ were portrayed on golden backgroud - and acts hapenning on the pictures took place in different timeless realm not subordinated to earthly rules).
Somethimes I think if it isn't a little bit "old fashioned to like" artists like Gauguin or van Gogh. These are big names very important to certain period in art history writing and I feel like involving myself more in contemplation of contemporary artists. In the other hand their works are simply beautiful (or it's the matter of culture we live, which sets them as higher standard of art to appreciate), and I like Vision after the sermon because is visualy pleseant for my eyes even though I don't remeber all of its context.