Drawing as Tapestry

Walking along my local beach during the Covid crisis, I was struck by how the incoming waves, no matter how chaotic, wash back out in a linear direction. This seems to occur because they have come into contact with the more stable foreshore, an observation that informed a series of line-based drawings called ‘Overlap Zone'. They, in turn, led to others that focus on wave patterns, as well as beach-front dynamics such as the formation of pebbles in the rough and tumble of a seafront location.

 

These works will feature in 'Drawing as Tapestry', an exhibition that captures a moment in my ongoing explorations across abstraction and figuration, and the possibilities offered by various mediums. The unifying thread is the use of ‘textile language’ as a metaphor for addressing the things I find interesting. In the example of the foreshore series, the incoming waves struck me as similar to 'weft' threads, interacting with the more stable 'warp'. A development has been the introduction of a broken line, a reference to the visual impact of one wrapping around the other, and to the historical connection between the technologies of weaving and computing. Rolling waves also mirror the spirals that result from the spinning processes used to produce yarn.

 

It was during a period spent in postgraduate study – and particularly while writing my doctoral thesis on the American artist Richard Tuttle - that the direction of this enquiry emerged. For Tuttle, I argued, the interacting warp and weft threads form a unity from a multiplicity of fibres. Taking his lead, I also came to view them as representing many of the dualisms we encounter in art and nature, such as light and dark, concealing and revealing, stasis and movement, folding and unfolding, opacity and transparency.

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In a world that's becoming increasingly polarised, it seems relevant to probe why concepts that are so interrelated – in fact, can be said to define each other, since it’s hard to understand one without the other – are often thought of as severed, representing opposite positions in our minds. I'm interested in exploring how they are connected and the possibilities they offer for dynamic forms of equilibrium. This has taken me in lots of different directions, including a long-term enquiry into transitions in art history. Stylistic changes often lean, to some degree, in one direction or the other, yet artworks generally retain structural balance. For more thoughts on this, see Understanding dualism and why it matters and Strange attractor.

 

The first transition I've looked at, between archaic and classical sculpture in Ancient Greece, shows shifts from symmetry to asymmetry, frontal orientations to presentations in the round and stasis to movement, among others. One discrete project was funded by an Arts Council Agility Award (for more, see here). I made early studies in pencil and acrylic, two and three-dimensions, before importing line-based techniques from the 'overlap' coastal series to convey some of the observations made. Cross-pollination also emerged in the other direction, the use of colour in the ancient world nudging me out of my comfort zone to try out bolder approaches in both figurative and landscape work.

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I'm looking forward to seeing the efforts of the past few years come together for a brief period. It will help to point out ways forward and build on the enthusiasm I feel for trying out many more ideas and approaches.