I’m continuing to draw from our flat in these weird locked down days. Two upcoming shows have been postponed indefinitely. The act of drawing is respite from thought; labour intensive activity to become lost in. This drawing has a star chart/night sky feel, employing several techniques. It’s currently composed of four A1 sheets of black card and feels like I could keep adding further sheets to it until our entire living space is consumed.
Detail I
Detail II
A0
Conté Crayon on black card.
A1 Card
Forms cluster and layer around fixed points in flux.
In September last year I was asked to create a wall drawing in the Vault Artist Studios members room. I drew this piece, a Fibunacci sequence inspired, planet like layering of regular circles in chalk. The chalk had not been sprayed with fixative, over the weeks and months parts of the drawing had been smudged and worn away as people’s presence marked the passage of time. This became a slow visual metaphor for the studio members’ transient presence in this former technical college.
Vault hosted an excellent Fringe festival on the first and second of June this year, comprising over 100 events and projects happening in the building and the car park. In preparation for this, the exterior of the building and the members room underwent a vibrant redecoration. The first drawing was covered up.
I drew a new site specific piece in a different part of the room using wax crayon:
The deep indigo background marks a break with monochrome. This drawing plays with imperfect symmetrical forms, incorporating influences from many sources including early arcade game vector graphics, sacred geometry and heavy metal logo typography.
Detail:
Here in the finished room, the drawing is surprisingly augmented with a rack holding pool cues.
This A1 gel pen drawing combines harsh angular forms with curved ones. It was shown at ‘In Orbit,’ the Catalyst Arts gallery members show that ran from the 18th of April to the 9th of May.
200 x 140 cm
Pen on Card
Blue Whale launched our long awaited album ‘Process’ at the Menagerie bar in Belfast on Friday the 9th of November. The drawing above was created for the event by working directly on to an old projector screen with a sharpie.
The cover is a visual metaphor for the collaborative, organic approach we take to writing our music, Gavin Millar’s excellent long exposure photograph depicting the four band members engaged in creating a large scale drawing, wearing flowing brightly coloured capes.
You can find out more about the album and order the vinyl from here: https://bluewhale.bandcamp.com
Here’s a short clip of the drawing under the excellent Menagerie light show:
I set myself the task of having a couple of new drawings ready for Culture Night Belfast on Friday last week. We had an open evening at Cathedral Studios. This is as far as I got with the drawings, the one on the left needs more work.
These are finished in the sense that any art work ever is. I could keep working at them adding more layers but judge it’s time to paint over them and start again.
I
II
John Macormac 