Drawing Biennial 2021, Drawing Room London (2021)
Exhibition & online fundraising auction of over 300 unique works on paper
David Austen Green Tree 18.11.20 Pen and emerald green ink on paper 29.7 x 21cm
This is a drawing of a woman metamorphosing, or closer still, erupting into a tree. There is a sense of upward pulsing movement. She is unlike the pursued Daphne transformed into a laurel, or the unfortunate souls enclosed in Dante’s petrified forest. She is not rooted to the spot.
Drawing is a record of a moment in time and more than any other medium or form captures at once what is both inside the artists thoughts and the marks and traces of its making.
This drawing is very much about the joy of dipping a steel nib into ink and drawing lines with a controlled abandonment. In this case the ink is of a wonderful emerald green made in Leipzig, Germany, from a small dark bottle with a beautiful printed label and glass shape.
It makes me feel a bit sad when I think one day I won’t be around to visit a shop that sells art materials and buy a little bottle of ink.
Drawing Room
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Elephant and Castle
London
SE17 1PP