Part 1 Research – Expressing emotions

Re: Julie Brixey-Williams’ drawing locationotation at http://www.saatchiart.com/art/-locationotation/91093/396898/view

I need to loosen up more in my approach to the concept of “drawing” as it seems my approach is too narrow. The work had little meaning or impact for me, until I knew how it was produced, and even then, the remoteness of the mechanism of its making gives it a quality of detachment, whilst the process feels contrived. I did not feel any emotion on looking at it. My “thinking brain” rather than my “feeling brain” became engaged in a consideration of the dancers who participated in making the work, and I wondered what, if anything, they felt whilst pirouetting. Did they feel like artists? Can they be considered as artists? If not what are they? Are they like the pen, the stick of charcoal etc.

I follow two local artists Debbie Locke and Sara Dudman who are working on a project “Flocking together”. This is a collaborative venture and entails webcam footage from sheep, the farmer, a webcam flying over a flock, a webcam attached to the sheep dog. the works are built up in layers using the webcam footage translated through a drawing machine, and drawings made by Sara directly from her observations of the animals, their behaviour and their interactions with their environment. The finished works are a composite of many different sources of data. I was going to say that the most meaningful contribution is that made by the artist Sara, who holds the paintbrush or the charcoal and makes the marks, but I think I am wrong. None of it would stand alone. It’s impact results from the process of its composition and all its composite parts.

Debbie Locke RWA and Sara Dudman: flocktogethernews.wordpress.com

Part one: Research: Atmospheric charcoal drawings

I have seen several atmospheric charcoal drawings recently.

In the Thelma Hulbert gallery in Honiton there is a large charcoal by Thelma Hulbert entitled Window, Leaves and Shadow 1952. It is abstract and very dark in places, with etching into the charcoal. Looking at it I could almost hear the leaves moving against the window.

In the Estorik Gallery I saw a drawing by Umberto Boccioni, a large dark, austere drawing in charcoal entitled Seated Woman. The woman’s face and hands are highlighted with white chalk, makes it seem as if she is peering back at her observer.

At the Bristol RWA in the exhibition Drawing On there were two huge charcoals by Carla Grippi of a wooded lane, which drew the viewer down the lane. The artist uses large gestures.

I’m really struggling to find the right words to describe what I saw. I am not familiar enough with words for the techniques used, don’t even know what the work might have entailed, having so little experience myself.

I would welcome help with this, although I have no idea where to get it. the study visit I went on to the Tate Modern (Marlene Dumas) was very little help in this respect.

I visited the print rooms of the Scottish National Gallery in december 2015 and viewed prints from his work The Tempation of St Anthony.

Figure 1.Odilon Redon. (1888) The Tempation of St Anthony.

Odilon Redon was a member of the Symbolist movement of artists. This movement, in the late nineteenth century, grew from the literature of a group of French poets, including Charles Beaudelaire, Stephane Mallarme and Paul Verlaine. It was a reaction against naturalism and realism and the attempts to represent the ordinary as something imbued with greater meaning. Symolists used imagery to represent mystical and religious meaning, rather than representing objects for themselves. In its turn, the symolist movement went on to influence the development of surrealism and expressionism.

The aim of Symbolist art was to be “always ambiguous, indeterminate and subjective”.

Redon’s early work was almost entirely limited to black and white. Examples of his work using lithography can be found online at the Fitzwillian Museum site. He was highly influential in bringing about a revival in the technique of lithography, using the interplay of light and dark tones he produced by this method, to convey deep emotional and spiritual reactions.

A charcoal drawing The Fallen Angel 1872 uses the strong juxtaposition of light and dark on the wings and torso of the crouched angel, to powerfully depict the awesome event, whilst the edges of the work slip away in a subtle ambiguity of shadows, which retains a deep sense of mystery. This is characteristic of his work.

Figure 2. Odilon Redon The Fallen Angel (1872)

In contrast, he uses fine pencil hatching in a drawing entitled Fear 1866, to convey an atmosphere of terror.

Figure 3. Odilon Redon (1865) Fear

The lone horseman, crossing a barren and threatening rocky terrain, is brought to a sudden halt by the fear in his stead, the wind still billowing in his cape. The horizontal rock strata fo the landscape is produced with fine diagonal pencil lines, whilst the vertical fault lines are drawn using closely spaced vertical lines, and depth is portrayed by varying the spacing of the lines and their depth of tone.

Images

Figure 1.Redon, O. (1888) The Temptation of St Anthony. [Lithographs on chine applique] Available at: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/r/artist/odilon-redon [Accessed on 17/02/2016]

Figure 2. Redon, O. (1872) The Fallen Angel [Charcoal] Available at:https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+fallen+angel+odilon+redon&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=610&tbm=isch&imgil=KuDGBrcZcuIoHM%253A%253BHGItxjzHDcEBoM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.wikiart.org%25252Fen%25252Fodilon-redon%25252Ffallen-angel-1872&source=iu&pf=m&fir=KuDGBrcZcuIoHM%253A%252CHGItxjzHDcEBoM%252C_&usg=__KgeLPiZVWemqkUF2H9b44Cjw_ks%3D&ved=0ahUKEwia8_-2tIHLAhWBRBoKHaVFBnsQyjcIJw&ei=5MXFVprxNoGJaaWLmdgH#imgrc=KuDGBrcZcuIoHM%3A [Accessed 17/02/2016]

Figure 3. Redon, O. (1865) Fear [Etching]. Available at:https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Odilon+redon+fear&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=610&tbm=isch&imgil=e3VAV2eeFgZLuM%253A%253BwhWPKZCIFpjKLM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fxroads.virginia.edu%25252F~museum%25252Farmory%25252FgalleryK%25252Fredon.309.3.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=e3VAV2eeFgZLuM%253A%252CwhWPKZCIFpjKLM%252C_&usg=__mfKO3GAenyS3qVIad6wVtJbR9Rs%3D&ved=0ahUKEwih5uySuIHLAhXDbxQKHf8SAmgQyjcIJw&ei=ysnFVqHZMsPfUf-liMAG#imgrc=e3VAV2eeFgZLuM%3A. [Accessed: 17/02/2016]