‘Line house’
Cardboard house, pens, paper, ink, patience, subjects.
An installation/performance during Fringe Arts Bath 2024 as part of the ‘Here and Now’ exhibition curated by Vicky Vatcher.
(Pre show)
A play on 'fancy a line' a popular phrase within modern drinking and drug culture. This play on words challenges the grotesque obvious with substituting 'line' for a drawing. A drawing in its most innocent a basic sense.
The subject will have a 'spot' or cross to stand on. I will draw the subject from my vessel. This drawing will be spontaneous. The outcome will depend on the figure, my creative state, the time of day, the noise around us, the pose, my pace. This is a receipt of a 'time period!
Am I using judgement when I see the subject? Is it purely form without judgement? Will I include features they hate, they love, they want. I feel like the fluidity of this process and the unknowing spontaneity of the image created could not be more 'Now’.
The subject is taking a chance and a risk, and I as the artist only have one chance. Whatever I ink is the final outcome, of that very exact moment in time. It's like an emotional photograph of the moment, yet something a camera cannot capture because I the capturer am biological and my state itself determines the outcome.
(post show after content)
(Post show)
Post show I had to reflect on what happened. I intended to give people their drawings, whizz through them without consent and deliver them from my peep hole. This is not what happened. I felt emotional, sat with my thoughts.
Person one was surprised, I felt guilt at my post.
Was I allowed to do this? Should I? Could I keep it? Is this/them/it mine to keep? Even photograph the drawing was that ok?
I found myself alone in the box, silent for a long time. Thinking about why I was guilty, what it meant to observe and the links to modern day social intrusion.
I felt it only right to give the drawings back, remove all matter and therefore evidence including photos taking without permission. The direct opposite of my intention to ‘gather’ the unaware during my time inside.
I came out feeling like the cardboard recycled wall around me wasn’t for show, it was for me to detract, the observer.
I found myself connecting to my vessel as a home only.
My objective changed I felt bad recording even the drawing, holding no need to keep their drawing even in a picture. This was them, for them only.
What even is a moment if unrecorded?
What even is a drawing if unwanted?
What makes intention pure? I felt pure by not knowing the person, seeing them as something to draw, the truest unassuming version of themselves as a stranger. It felt ‘now’ and ‘pure’. It also felt the opposite?
I will continue to work on this during my next line exercise.