DRAWINGPRIZE
JerwoodDrawingPrize2015
16 SEPTEMBER – 25 OCTOBER 2015
The Jerwood Drawing Prize is the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK.
Selected from original drawings, the Jerwood Drawing Prize has established a reputation for its commitment to championing excellence, and to promoting and celebrating the breadth of contemporary drawing practice within the UK. The exhibition provides a platform to showcase the work of drawing practitioners, from student to established, and as a project helps to define a wider understanding of the role and value of drawing in creative practice. The longevity of the Prize, which has been running since 1994, is a testament to the appetite of the artists who make drawings, and the continued interest of audiences visiting the exhibition, making it one of the most popular shows in the Jerwood Visual Arts programme.
I entered two drawings for the Jerwood, both of which are works I’m developing for my end of year show.
The first drawing was made in oil pastel and and electric eraser. My work is concerned with movement and so the drawing is depicting an object travelling at a high speed in one direction. I wanted the drawing to shift, and skittle in the viewers eyes and so placed much thought and detail to the surface content of the oil pastel. I emphasised uncontrollable nature of the force of the drawing by adding chipped bits and pieces to suggest that the object was falling apart through its trajectory.
The second drawing I entered into the competition was a piece that I developed from my recent residency in Margate
A piece I titled ‘Alidade‘ – by definition means: a sighting device or pointer for determining directions or measuring angles, used in surveying and (formerly) astronomy.
The drawing was an assemblage of a found drawing, a found photograph, tissue paper and a physical line made up of found objects – the line served as the measuring tool for the piece. For me, the work was about creating my own personal mapping system, and questioning my position to the landscape which I am in/part of. The found drawing was a stain on the back of a book cover, which related directly to the found photograph – of a landscape (cliffs and sea scape) The stain looked like the outline to a lost map of the island, a place I had perhaps been before. The tissue, served as a mapping tool for the found drawing and photograph (which were collaged together) By randomised drops of the found drawing onto the tissue paper, I wrapped the tissue around the drawing each time, to create a network of interelating lines, which over time, the folded marks began to look like stars. This furthered the connection to the term – Alidade – as a tool used to in astronomy to map the stars. This way of thinking about my own perceptions of drawing and mapping and cartography has really opened up new thoughts about how I could develop this work further, and am using my time to learn about cartography and mapping to influence my next body of work.
Aesthetically I wanted the work to look as though it belonged in a cartographers office, and had instructed it to be pinned (coloured pins) to the wall while the measuring line would span an exact space within the exhibition as though to create a trail of the history of my body channeling through the exhibition.
I was not successful in getting into final exhibition for the Jerwood this year.