Lockdown stick drawings

There is a theory in the neuroscience of literacy that writing systems echo the lines that intersect in nature. Our brains recognise and use known patterns to form written languages. The natural world is a strewn with potential alphabets, fragments of uncoded writing lying at our feet. In my stick drawings, the slender lines have a physicality due to the emphasis on the shadow. Whilst shadows are often associated with absence of light, these shadows show that these delicate lines can be held. They have a tangible presence, albeit slight and vulnerable. The drawing is most intense at the point of contact between the object and the surface. The ground as meeting place. The pressure felt in my hand’s grip on the pencil as it pushes down, echoing the impression of printing where the metal plate is pushed into the paper. I am reminded of  Vija Celmins' reflection of the touches of the dry, hard pencil in contrast to the wet, soft contact of paint. Touch is sensed by awareness of pressure and movement of our body in contact with surfaces. Our haptic understanding of the world through the eye is an anticipation of this touch. Through our writing we make contact with the surface, letters moving across the page led by our hand.

​This ongoing series began in March 2020 during the lockdown due to the global coronavirus pandemic. See my instagram account for more drawings. 

---

---