- Venue
- One Church Street Gallery
- Location
- South East England
Four weeks ago, I visited the Jerwood Prize for Drawing – the largest and most prestigious drawing prize in the UK; it was innovative and exciting, though the quality of the seventy or so pieces was, in my opinion, uneven and the hang, at times, baffling.
Fast forward to the opening, of the Open Drawing Submission, run biennially by One Church Street Gallery in Great Missenden; just as innovative and exciting, but a more consistent standard of work and so coherently hung, that fifty pieces sang harmoniously together in a room one tenth of the size of the Jerwood Space. Three of the artists selected were also showing at the Jerwood and one, who was shortlisted for the Jerwood, did not make it into the One Church Street show!
This exhibition celebrates contemporary drawing as an artistic activity in its own right – not one merely preparatory to work in other disciplines. Furthermore, since One Church Street’s criteria encouraged the broadest possible interpretation of drawing, this show pushes the concept of drawing to its very limits. Almost every medium is represented – from 3D, to drawings made by drawing machines, to photography, print, stitch work, video and even jewellery. That is not to say conventional drawing methods are ignored; pencil, pen and ink, charcoal and pastel are all ably represented.
So how does a small, provincial gallery attract artists of this quality? I managed to talk to Andrew Vaas, one of the artists whose work was shortlisted for both the Jerwood and One Church Street. He told me there are very few opportunities for artists primarily interested in drawing and that One Church Street’s credibility is ensured by the quality of the jury it assembled, which comprises very distinguished members of the profession. In addition, there is no doubt the light, white space lends itself beautifully to showing drawings.
Four winners were announced at the opening and these artists (listed below) will share an exhibition at One Church Street in 2013.
Jenny Purrett’s work results from of a build-up of many small elements. Her impressively beautiful Shot Paper Installation, which immediately evokes a silver birch copse, comprises long suspended paper cylinders, which have been perforated and slashed by shot-gun pellets until the surface resembles birch bark. As well as the holes and tears, the lead shot itself leaves “drawn” pencil-like marks. The creation of the visually pastoral by a randomly destructive medium epitomises the elements of surprise and paradox present in many of the works in this exhibition.
Debbie Locke’s Dialogue ix looks like an intricate web of tangled threads, yet it is an ink drawing made by drawing machines the artist herself devised. These communicate via Bluetooth and each attempts to emulate the marks of the other – so the resulting drawings evidence a dialogue between the machines. Theoretically, these marks should be identical, however, by adopting, a ‘Heath Robinson’ approach in the mechanism’s assembly, Locke challenges the notion of the infallibility of machines, enabling the work to escape pre-determined confines and, once more, achieve the unexpected.
Reginald Aloyisus’s work entitled BAH GF66, layers media and ideas in equal measure. Drawings of South Indian and Sri Lankan Hindu temples are made with graphite pencil; thin white lines (scaffolding), etched into the surface, suggest a tension between old and new – the architecture of ancient temples and modern skyscrapers. Lines based on airline flight paths are then inscribed with a scalpel, irrevocably scarring the drawing, before sulphurous yellow Humbrol paint fills the lines. The superimposing of hard, contemporary media and ideas over softer more ancient ones aptly references Aloyisus’s themes of globalization, emigration, and destruction of tradition – intentionally or otherwise – through development and modernization.
Rachel Gibson’s exploration of the intimate spaces of home and garden has encouraged enquiry about fragility, growth and loss. “It is the way a drawing can hover on the edge of existence that makes its language so eloquent” she says. This eloquence is personified in the mark making and subtle layering of A Soft Nest no.6, an exquisitely delicate rendition in coloured pastels, which speaks volumes about gentleness and fragility.
There are many other works to fascinate: Eleanor Franklin’s etching and thread on Japanese paper, entitled Aril, Simon Parish’s marker pen Swedish Rug, Andrew Vaas’s charcoal Park Area 4, Nicholas Lees’s ink on paper Drawing 12.04 and Carolyn Cameron’s watercolour and stitched West Pier, Brighton, to name a few.
Don’t take my word for it, you still have time to see for yourself – it’s worth the trip, I assure you.
Annie Gunning
The jury for the 2012 One Church Street Drawing Open Submission comprised:Professor Rod Bugg, whose practice is sculpture and drawing; previously Head of Wimbledon College of Art, former Dean of Central St. Martins, he is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Arts, London.
Dr. Yvonne Crossley, painter, art educationalist and former Jerwood Prize judge, set up and runs The Drawing Gallery, the first UK gallery to focus exclusively on contemporary drawing.
Lyndsey Keeling, sculptor and arts director and curator of One Church Street Gallery.
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 11-4,
For further information: Tel: 01494 863344 e: gallery@onechurchstreet.co.uk
