Where do you draw the line? Is the online location for the development of “Where do you draw the line?” an exhibition of drawings and interventions by a selected group of artist all of whom have a shared desire to stretch the possibilities of drawing.
The question “Where do you draw the line?” is intentionally open ended – with the hope that the show will encourage artists and audiences to engage with the idea of drawing in it’s widest possible sense. In so doing participating artists will be invited to interrogate their own practice, the gallery space, the audience and other contexts as well as the act of drawing itself.
Why Drawing?
There has been a resurgence in interest in drawing in the past few years with exhibitions such as Drawn From the Collection (http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/drawnfromthecollection/default.shtm) at Tate Britain and the current Fruit Market Gallery show, (http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/). The opening and continued success of The Drawing Room in east London (2003), and the recent publication of major surveys of artists drawing buy Phaidon and Black Dog Publishing also lend weight to the case that drawing is no longer something that needs to remain hidden in the background of artists practice.
Drawing is no longer seen as a stage in the process of making art but as an end in itself. The boundaries of drawing have also been stretched to include all kinds of mark making, sometimes making it harder to define. Michael Craig-Martin’s summary in the catalogue for “Drawing the Line” (1995) provides the best definition and summation of the continued importance of drawing.
“…the qualities we have come to value most highly in art…have always been present…but usually in the past have characterised only modest and ‘secondary’ work; that is drawings. These characteristics include spontaneity, creative speculation, experimentation, directness, simplicity, abbreviation, expressiveness, immediacy, personal vision, technical diversity, modesty of means, rawness, fragmentation, discontinuity, unfinishedness and open endedness.”
As Craig-Martin makes so clear these characteristics have always been the characteristics of drawing and are what make drawing continuously relevant. The spontaneity of drawing and relative cheapness of materials make it an attractive form through which artists have always develop their ideas. However with a collapsing economy and shrinking funding for art exhibitions and sources of income for artists; drawing can become an even more attractive prospect because of the affordability of its production! This is not to limit the validity of drawing as means of creative output, far from it, as a reflection of the times drawing has never seemed more vital and current.
All of this combined makes it an opportune time to put together an exhibition that allows artists with a pervading interest in drawing to come together to make work in response to our space, each other and the process of drawing.
