2011

When we speak of ‘drawing’ we really mean the ‘drawing out’ of the imaginary line. The charcoal pulled across the paper comes apart, disintegrating into a trail – or trace – of its movement. But what the material suggests is illusory – this ‘drawing out’ is in reality a ‘leaving behind’ – a deposition of the material itself, or a separating out and breaking down of the unity of the drawer. In ‘Tangled Drawings’, this separation is infinitely resisted, the materiality of the work is indeed, ‘drawn out’ in the process of rolling and elongating, extending and diminishing into the unbroken line – and in doing so, tangled up and turned in on itself. In this way, we may also understand the knot as a tangled drawing – in pulling away from the whole, the heart of the knot is drawn ever tighter towards itself in a firm (even constricting) embrace. And while the extremities may break under the tension of pulling apart, the structure of the knot becomes all the more intractable. In one’s attempts to unpick the knot, its origin becomes more deeply buried in the tangle of its drawing.