Blog
'Human Geometry'
14/05/2024
This is the first wall-drawing Roshan and I have made for a couple of years. We have been asked to do this by Ruth Brumby, curator of the artist-run gallery Cromer Artspace.
It is the visual manifestation of the Whatsapp conversation between us. .
The conversation began with Roshan finding a C19th ethnographic photo of a woman and a man overpainted with geometric measurements. We replaced the male figure with Roshan's existing drawing of a diagrammatic man, drawn onto the picture-plane as though in conversation with the sculpted photo of the woman. The measurements purport to be objective, yet the picture fizzles i to molecules and pixels the closer you look.
We talked about the various elements within the drawing, but it wasn't till it was almost complete that I noticed that I hadn't made anything authentically mine – the drawings and ideas were really all Roshan. Yet I enjoyed taking a backseat, and copying his drawing, which was copies of photographs in his very distinctive style, subsuming myself to another person's vision. You could say we are questioning the authorships of the images, both the original intention of the antique photo and of Roshan's drawing but my reluctance to shell out £20 for a digital print plays a part too.
Rather than download and print, Stephanie has drawn large freehand copies of Roshan's messages directly onto the gallery wall. This unlikely relationship echoes their own, connected and simultaneously seperated.
Medium: Pencil, ink print, acrylic paint, found objects, digital print
Dimensions: 150 x 200cm
Date: 2024i
Price: Limited edition A3 hand-finished unframed digital print, £50
It is the visual manifestation of the Whatsapp conversation between us. .
The conversation began with Roshan finding a C19th ethnographic photo of a woman and a man overpainted with geometric measurements. We replaced the male figure with Roshan's existing drawing of a diagrammatic man, drawn onto the picture-plane as though in conversation with the sculpted photo of the woman. The measurements purport to be objective, yet the picture fizzles i to molecules and pixels the closer you look.
We talked about the various elements within the drawing, but it wasn't till it was almost complete that I noticed that I hadn't made anything authentically mine – the drawings and ideas were really all Roshan. Yet I enjoyed taking a backseat, and copying his drawing, which was copies of photographs in his very distinctive style, subsuming myself to another person's vision. You could say we are questioning the authorships of the images, both the original intention of the antique photo and of Roshan's drawing but my reluctance to shell out £20 for a digital print plays a part too.
Rather than download and print, Stephanie has drawn large freehand copies of Roshan's messages directly onto the gallery wall. This unlikely relationship echoes their own, connected and simultaneously seperated.
Medium: Pencil, ink print, acrylic paint, found objects, digital print
Dimensions: 150 x 200cm
Date: 2024i
Price: Limited edition A3 hand-finished unframed digital print, £50
