Studio Practice

Artist Film: An introduction to my artist practice, exploring contemporary drawing.

A light responsive installation (created by an artist I share a studio with) of green bottles covers the window next to my desk. As the light pours through the layers of glass, colours dance across my drawing works on paper. Initially, this was a distraction whilst drawing, as well as an annoyance when photographing my works! Green, blue, red and pink shadows became my mortal enemy. Then the season changed. The sunlight no longer poured through the window installation, instead, it modestly highlighted it. The colours no longer appeared on my works…

Without the reflections of soft colours, I felt as if my work lost something. My little heart broke. The only way I thought to mend this broken heart was to create my own pastel colours, which once reflected on my work, using watercolours and pastels. The colour offered my works depth and the soft forms I created with the watercolour softened the harshness of the edge of the paper, complimenting the fluidity of the pencil works.

I am thoroughly enjoying the use of colour washes in my works and I’m excited to see layers and depths appear in my drawings, creating more painterly qualities. More work on this series, I hope, will raise questions on how we define drawing and ask whether these drawings will eventually (if ever) be defined as paintings.