Murmuration
Charcoal drawing digitally stretched, intentionally distorted and printed onto paper in preparation for a new light drawing
It is interesting when your work is viewed through the fresh eyes of someone new. I was lucky enough to have spent time with Andrew while he was here in Sydney on a little sojourn. In amongst lots of coffee, conversation and some walking we spent 2 Sunday afternoons in my studio for yet more coffee, conversation and tea. When Andrew saw the new light drawing I am working on he asked me if I had ever seen footage of a starling murmuration? I vaguely thought I had but couldn’t really recall properly. When he showed me the short film by Jan van Ijken (below) I was completely mesmerised by this phenomena. The visual relationship to the charcoal drawing I had done was completely fascinating for me. I had never seen the work in this way before. As Andrew pointed out, there is a visual relationship with a lot of my previous work and not just this one. When I went back and had a look I started to see starling murmurations everywhere.
The most interesting part of this new found relationship is that the drawing above only has this look because I have digitally stretched and distorted the original charcoal drawing into a 2 metre long image in preparation for a large light drawing. It is through the digital manipulation and subsequent pixelation that the similarities to the starling murmuration appears… and what a fantastic association this all has to air - thank you Andrew for helping me to see my work through new eyes.