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This blog is a diary of visual research.

An archive of ‘undisciplined’ meandering.

Glimpses of contemplation, musing, reading, wandering, collecting & gathering. Drawing in silence & sound, light & dark. Deep within this rumination is an honest account of the evolution behind creating, discovering, and traveling down the twisted life path of an artist.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE and the art of movement in drawing

William Kentridge has been one of my favourite artists for a long time, especially as his practice predominantly focuses on drawing and different interpretations of what drawing can be. I was super happy to see that he was having an exhibition while in Berlin. I took the following photos without realising I actually wasn't meant to be taking them...

The use of movement, sound and projection within the drawing created an experience of being apart of the drawn space rather than just a passive viewer. This is something I am also also interested in exploring for this project, however, I'm interested in using the viewers heart beat, breath and/or proximity to activate parts of the drawing.

After visiting the exhibition of Alice Lex-Nerlinger (curated by the very talented Rachel Epp Buller) while in Berlin,  I stumbled across a great bookstore and picked up a copy of the book, Notes Towards A Model Opera. This book presents a collection of  Kentridge's notebooks giving us a glimpse into his artistic thinking, private musings, historical research and visual themes. I love looking through artists' notebooks almost as much as seeing their studio spaces. This book gives a brilliant insight into the workings of Kentridge's artistic mind. There was an excellent essay written by Andrew Solomon in the beginning of the book titled, William in Exile: Thoughts on Failed Utopias. The following is an extract taken from that essay:

"Kentridge has said that the palimpsests in his films and drawings originally seemed to him a grave misfortune, the result of imperfect erasing - and then a friend remarked that it was the most interesting thing about the work. The pentimento of his first imaginings haunts the image that is preserved. There is no present tense in Kentridge's work that is not mottled by the past. These shadows are most sweetly manifest in his intense love of history itself: Plato, the Enlightenment, the failed ideologies of African colonialism and the Russian Revolution." 

This statement makes me question my fascination with the future and how the idea of visible erasing speaks of the past  could be turned upside down to create drawings that give a glimpse into the potential of the future... 

The following images of William Kentridge's drawings were taken during the Venice Biennale 2015.  

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