Archives for posts with tag: conte crayon

Magma

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Conté Crayon on black card.

Iris

One of the 3 wall drawings I currently have on display in the Orpheus Building, Belfast as part of the MFA show. I am honoured that the image was used in the exhibition flyer.

mfa-2015-ad-thin1

The show will continue this week at the following times:

Monday 8th June: 9am to 5pm
Tuesday 9th June: 9am to 5pm
Wednesday 10th June: 9am to 5pm
Thursday 11th June: 9am to 5pm
Friday 12th June: 9am to 5pm
Saturday 13th June: 10am to 5pm ( show closes)

john

My end of year show will comprise 3 wall drawings, white chalk on black walls. Thanks to Paul Marshall for creating this time lapse.

circle 24 3

Wall drawing is becoming more focussed and minimal, though I hesitate to use that word. Something is activated when multiple layers of chalk are built up, the form appears more solid and sculptural.

d r a w i n g

The plug socket is included to give a sense of scale.

I talked about a need for new approaches to the ongoing wall piece in my last post. Since then I have been conducting experiments with new forms:

new forms

Responding to criticism, I have chosen an indentation in the studio to trace and repeat in the above rhomboid form. Care was taken to ensure the chosen mark’s shape could not be easily read as animal like, or to evoke many associations beyond it’s own pure form.

shape of itself

I am preparing for our MFA mid term show this Thursday night in the art college. Rather than try to seek a resolution, where the whole wall coheres as a piece, I have decided to heed one of my tutors advice and set up an experimental drawing ‘lab’ for the duration of the show. This will free me up, the idea of having to produce a ‘resolved’ piece fills me with anxiety. In my experience anxiety is a perrenial enemy of creativity.

One possible idea would be to use black as a framing device, perhaps with the repeated blob shape, as in this hastily mocked up photoshop picture:

mock

This would heighten the impact of the central band of marks. Another idea for potential development is sanding the wall. I like the looking through tracing paper effect of this, as seen in this small section:

sandy

The piece will continue to evolve in the coming days, over the duration of the show. I will be performing in a time based work. I’ll update this blog with what happens.

Documentation of piece in progress on the walls of my studio space in the Orpheus building in the Belfast school of art. The building is to be demolished in June.

wall wall1 wall2 wall3 wall4 wall5 wall6

I set myself the parameters of only using black conte crayon to trace, and pencil to transfer marks. Traced marks were only to be from sources present in the MFA studio environment, such as cracks in the floor and plasterwork and stains from spilt paint. The majority of marks come from traced knots in plywood boards. I like their shapes, and on a deeper level am intrigued by how they mark the passage of time and growth of the trees that were used to make the wood.

The tracings are transferred to the wall several times, the marks become fainter each time. Sometimes the pieces of tracing paper are loaded with crayon again to achieve a darker line. It is a fragile and delicate material to use, it often rips when a sharp point of a pencil passes across it.

beyond

conte crayon and emulsion paint on canvas

Here is another work from my recent series of map based pieces.