Saturday thoughts: black, white, grey, erasure, rebuilding, remembering

I’m in the middle of doing a large charcoal and chalk drawing on black pastel paper. I’ve always had a penchant for working on black surfaces. During my MA I projected videos onto black perspex, lay thick printing inks onto black watercolour when I made monoprints.

I attended an Arvon writing residency about arts writing and we were invited to choose an image to write about in first person. I chose this:

ellsworth-kelly-ek-319-daros

and wrote this:

ELLSWORTH KELLY 1963

WHITE OVER BLACK

I am the shadow underneath

Hosted on black, barely visible

Where white drapes over me, I gain attention

You will notice white more too

When I lurk below it

Even the black cannot deny me

When white reveals me

Without my subtlety

Their boldness would go unnoticed

They would be flat dull and lifeless

I am the space between

I give the illusion of space

I am their breathe

My first ever website was called “Grey Matters” and had a drawing of a human brain as it’s main image. I’ve always enjoyed exploring liminal places, and spaces, and thoughts.

I married a man named Black

I wear black

I have always had black and white pets!

I just looked for some of my old work in my portfolio and found these old friends. After all these years I can see a connection in my artwork. Landscape. Virtuality. Space. Trees.

Worked in many mediums, woodcuts, lino cuts, etchings, ink washes, charcoal, photography, projected shed snake skins (yes, that’s my self portrait!)

So here they are, a blast from my past, and a work in progress now…..(click each for full size)

A1 image on watercolour paper, made in dark room, photographic gel brushed onto paper. The image is one of many I made by making glass projector slides with shed snake skins from Bristol Zoo, projected onto my face and body. It was the time of Dolly the sheep – wondering whether we could, in the future, change our bodies like this.