Drawing: ‘a protest against forgetting’
This paper explores how two widely differing experiences of Icelandic landscapes have influenced Hicks’s methods of investigation through drawing in two drawing projects. There is an examination of how the marks or gestures adopted in each project are suggestive of these differing encounters. There...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://research.tees.ac.uk/en/publications/05087180-964f-4e59-929d-308ce8ea620f https://arthist.net/archive/16746 |
| Summary: | This paper explores how two widely differing experiences of Icelandic landscapes have influenced Hicks’s methods of investigation through drawing in two drawing projects. There is an examination of how the marks or gestures adopted in each project are suggestive of these differing encounters. There is also an exploration of the relationship in these projects between drawing and memory. The ‘Sandur’ project is considered first. There is discussion of how the drawings echo something of the natural processes involved in the forming of the land through the build up and erosion of deposits; and how this was achieved with the most basic of tools, pencils and a rubber, building up thick, dense areas of graphite and then erasing or partially erasing sections to reveal the paper beneath, leaving behind marks and traces. The ‘Northern Lights’ drawings are developed from webcam images retrieved from a road traffic website in Iceland. A consideration of the drawing process in this project examines how, using simple materials, graphite and coloured pencils, the image is drawn in, then overworked using a ruler, the mechanical like process echoing a printer. Moving on to the discussion of memory and place, there is emphasis on how the ‘Sandur’ project draws upon the memory of an actual experience of place, memory reinforced by acts of physical engagement through walking and painting. The more nuanced relationship of the works to place and memory in the ‘Northern Lights’ is also examined. Here the experience of landscape is mediated through the webcam and the computer – the three dimensional landscape filtered through the flat screen of a monitor. There is an exploration of how, in taking the webcam images and transforming them into drawings, the works begin to resist ‘photography’s ability to fix an image in time.’ [Sontag]. |
|---|