Scaffold drawings 2017

A multitude of scaffolding and cranes is a common sight around expanding cities and suburbs. This changing cityscape and the people it has displaced in the reshaping process fed into my thinking about this work.

The method of creating the scaffold drawings involved building a structure from stencils or strips of tape applied to the surface of the paper. Once the tape was in place the negative spaces were filled in with charcoal and pastel. The tape was removed to reveal the trace of the scaffold structure, exploring abstract visual elements such as line, tone, negative space and repeated patterns. Like a scaffold for a building the tape became a temporary structure, leaving only a ghost image and enabling the construction of the two-dimensional drawing.

Some of the drawings were created during an artist residency in Finland. In July 2017 I was awarded a one-month stay at Arteles, one of the largest International artist residencies in Scandinavia. While the artworks created there did not directly relate to the place the Finnish landscape entered my drawings in the form of the tree horizon.

Encroach I: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 57 x 75cm
Encroach II : (Diptych) Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 57 x 75cm
Oscillating: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 52 x 39cm
Brace: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 52 x 39cm
Pulse I: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 75 x 75cm
Pulse II: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 75 x 75cm
Escalation: Charcoal and pastel on stonehenge paper, 75 x 57cm

Photography: Mike Buick
See Precarious Exhibition Catalogue .pdf with essay by Paul Howard.