Ecologies of Drawing: In Situ

Ecologies of Drawing: In Situ, a Drawing Research Network (DRN) exhibition, Loughborough University, 2022. Curated by Sara Schneckloth.

A still image from my drawing video, Tide, has been selected for Ecologies of Drawing: In Situ, a Drawing Research Network (DRN) exhibition, Loughborough University, 2022. Curated by Sara Schneckloth. 

View the exhibition online here

Tide can be viewed in the exhibition here

This exhibition takes place within the context of the Drawing Research Network‘s 2022 Ecologies of Drawing series of research presentations* organised by the Drawing Research Group (DRG) at Loughborough University. 

I often turn to the DRN for inspiration so I was blown away to have had my work selected by guest curator, Sara Schneckloth. I’ve always been drawn to smaller exhibitions that are carefully curated. They allow me to slow down and really look at each work, both on its own and in relation to the other works alongside it. It also encourages me to look at my own work with fresh eyes as well as discover the work of other artists.

The Curator’s Statement transported me to the place, environment and context within which the works were selected, and the process of “creating an ecosystem of images with various points of overlap and synergy, finding resonance and friction alike.”

The individual works have been thoughtfully brought together through “thematic strands that weave throughout, moving from visualizations of entanglements and networks, to interplay of elements and natural forces, to architectures and human-impacted environments, to images that solidify and render iconic fragments that, together, may be seen as united.”*

I love how my work, Tide, has been situated within ‘Elemental ecologies’ and “space for hand and stone to interact and mutually inform”. It reflects the slow process of creating the work, and drawing with pen on paper with trace memories of sand, sea, tide. 

Schneckloth finishes this Curatorial Statement by powerfully connecting the curatorial process with the artworks and artists, and the wider urgency of the ecological context:

“At present, I am writing from a 10×12’ studio perched on the slope of a dormant volcano in Northern New Mexico in the Southwestern US. The wind is blowing at gale force and the sun bakes the soil into layers of cracked clay with rain still over a month away… The elements are raw here… Scale is mutable… My own ecological awareness is heightened here, sensitive to balances and upsets… Being able to consider the drawings submitted for the exhibition within this physical context lent an even greater sense of urgency and importance for the work that artists do to raise awareness and enact change. The artworks submitted for this exhibition embody a range of ecological thought and action, united by an ethic of consciousness and dedication to engage with complexity, equilibrium, and flux in our lived environment, understood and expressed through the act of drawing.”

This wonderfully elemental description enabled me to travel in my imagination and find tangible connections in this online exhibition. 

Thank you to Sara Schneckloth and the Drawing Research Network. It is a huge pleasure to be included in this gem of an exhibition.

* Quotes are from the Curatorial Statement

* Recordings of the Temporal Drawing research presentations can be viewed on the Drawing Research Network and TRACEY website

Read more about Tide here and background on the context of its making here. 

Tide (Pen on paper with trace memories of sand, sea, tide, 2021)