A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
2021- ongoing
Performance; drawing
Individual improvised performances. The duration of each is complete when the artist’s gestures meet physical exhaustion.
Graphite, ink, charcoal, silverpoint, paper, approx. 60x42cm
In the Performative Drawings Series, each drawing is an improvised performance whose duration is complete when the artist’s gestures meet physical exhaustion (around 2-3 minutes).
The full body is engaged, but the paper is not observed to disassociate from any visual control over the drawing process. The final drawing brings together the mark making implement and the way it is held, with the paper surface and its location in the performance space. As the pencil moves, perception and emotion in that moment are driven into other areas of knowing, resonating on a deeper level; a mirror to processes within the body. The drawings take on an audible quality as they tend towards a mass of energised, entangled vibrations.
Location: Suffolk, UK
This approach to drawing is part of ongoing research into the relationship between the visual, the experiential and the auditory. The aim is to capture a sense of the intangible space between the impact of elements that make a performance, with particular reference to the performance of ‘classical’ music: the instructions within the language of notation, the effect of space on the acoustic experience, the memory, the physicality and psychological moment of performance experienced by the soloist on the concert platform and the presence of an audience.
gesture, physicality, movement, memory, body, drawing, energy
© Sophie Standford