Performance Drawing 2021

Performance Drawing 2021 presents works by international artists whose practice stretches, pulls, pushes and steps across disciplines relating to drawing and performance.

To mark the first anniversary of the publication, Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 (Bloomsbury 2020), the Centre for Recent Drawing presents an online show and in-person residency with curated events that extends the initial exploration of works in the book and considers the future of practice at the intersection of drawing and performance. Featured artists’ works were made since the date of writing and develop the book’s themes in new directions: Adelaide Damoah, Birgitta Hosea, Carali McCall, Maryclare Foá, Maurice Moore, Piyali Ghosh, Ram Samocha, sophia bartholomew. 

Adelaide Domoah 

A Litany for Survival, 2019, is a visceral, powerful work by Adelaide Domoah inspired by Audre Lorde’s poem of the same name. In her performance, Domoah addresses physicality and the body in struggle. Her works can be seen as referencing various performance drawing actions in paint, from past to present.  

Maurice Moore 

In Drawing While Black, aka Black Boy Joy, 2020, Maurice Moore marks on brown paper and/or on black board while dancing in a hand-crafted mask. Travelling back and forth in a defiant gestural flow, Moore applies rhythmic marks that references both the joy of dance and the defiance of black queer dance culture. 

Piyali Ghosh 

In Naksha an Untold Odyssey, 2019, Piyali Ghosh embodies drawing and becomes the gestural moving sculpture that is in conversation with the material of her drawn works; addressing elements of ritual and also the performative process. As her body becomes the space, she is performative: interacting with her work and sometimes wearing pieces as costume. 

Ram Samocha 

In Mountain Range Outline, 2020, Ram Samocha traces the ridges of a mountain range in the distance with a tube of condensed milk on cellophane. Responding directly to the landscape, Samocha reimages the scenery and in so doing, also references both the personal and the rural. 

sophia bartholomew 

sophia bartholomew’s work The strand like the spirit: the spirit like the breath, 2021, references the landscape, wind, snow, wide open space. The work expands the notion of performance drawing to include the history of the body’s presence in the environment; using their own voice as a sounding.

C4RD Residency (14th Sept – 14th Oct 2021)

During the residency, Foá, Hosea and McCall will be investigating their individual practice as well as working in collaborations that include drawing, performance and the curation of online events. The aim is to reflect on their publication, Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945 (2020), and to address new issues raised by the artists’ work in the exhibition Performance Drawing 2021.

Events Programme:

Performance Drawing 2021 online exhibition in browser-based VR with Adelaide Damoah, Maurice Moore, Piyali Ghosh, Ram Samocha, sophia bartholomew (curated by Foá, Hosea and McCall)  – 14 Sept – 14th Oct

Foá, Hosea and McCall Residency at C4RD – 14 Sept – 14th Oct 

Piyali Ghosh performance on Instagram Live, Sat 18th Sept 5pm (BST)

Ram Samocha performance on Instagram Live Sat 25th Sept 7pm (BST)

sophia bartholomew performance on Instagram Live Sat 2nd Oct 5pm (BST)

Draw to Perform: Ram Samocha interviews Maryclare Foá, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall. Sun 3rd Oct 8pm BST.  Book on EventBrite.

Adelaide Damoah, Maurice Moore and Ram Samocha in conversation with Foá, Hosea and McCall. Tues 5th Oct 7pm BST. Book on EventBrite.

Birgitta Hosea/Carali McCall/Claire Zakiewicz performance at Hundred Years Gallery. Weds 13th Oct. Curated by Claire Zakiewicz. Book on EventBrite (link TBC)

Piyali Ghosh and sophia bartholomew in conversation with Foá, Hosea and McCall. Thurs 14th Oct 6pm BST. Book on EventBrite.

Register on Eventbrite

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On Collaboration: Scores for Drawing

In this presentation, Birgitta Hosea talks about the collaboration between herself, Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall that resulted in the book Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945 (Bloomsbury, 2000).

Using material from chapter 3, in itself a collaboration between herself and Foá, she considers the score as a form with which to invite participation and unexpected results when working with others. The presentation concludes with an overview of a participatory project in live animation.

Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020

Maryclare Foa ( as R & F Mo) has had two works selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.

R&F Mo, Cowboy Reflect Me and Person on Horse, 2020, screenshot from Trinity Buoy Wharf virtual online exhibition at https://drawingprojects.uk/index.php/exhibitions/currently-on-show

R & F Mo’s drawings, Person and Horse, 2020, 27 x 32cm, and Cowboy Reflect Me, 2020, 54 x 53cm, are both made in gouache and ink on cardboard. They explore relationships between animals and people – that can be treasured and unfathomable things, perhaps sometimes revealing the patience of animals and the fragility of people. Despite the imbalance of power still a person is most often exposed as the flawed and wanting party in a cross-species union. We often include animals in our pictures, having the presence of otherness, that is the contrast of a person and another creature together within the same frame, gives us a potential narrative to explore, and can offer the viewer multiple interpretations. The informality of cardboard gives the making process and the image a sense of play. This picture is a mixture of half-remembered and half-fictionalised ideas. Years ago, we took a road trip through Arizona and stopped to paint the rocks, there was a cowboy and a dog, perhaps a touch of Sam Shephard. Ambiguity of the subject is intended to suggest different interpretations (rather than direct one view), the cowboy looks both ways and holds up a mirror to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. We pose to each other in costumes, while animals patiently navigate us through their world.

Drawing Projects UK presented this online Drawing Discussion – with Anita Taylor, Tricia Gillman and R & F Mo – alongside the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020 exhibition on Tuesday 19 January at 6pm.

Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945

Published by: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020
Preface written by: Anna Furse. Foreword written by: Bonnie Marranca
Part of the Drawing In series, edited by Russell Marshall, Marsha Meskimmon and Phil Sawdon.

The first book to be published on ‘Performance Drawing’. A visual arts book that features a wide range of artists involved in the expanded field of drawing, demonstrating rigorous academic research. It establishes performance drawing as a vibrant art movement that has been progressively burgeoning since 1945 and contextualises today’s contemporary approaches – questioning what is drawing and what is performance? Each chapter focuses on a different perspective of performance drawing. Embracing the different voices and various lenses, the authors combine individual yet critical methodologies. While embedded in ephemerality and immediacy, the themes encompass body and energy, time and motion, light and space, imagined and observed, demonstrating how drawing can act as a performative tool. The dynamic interaction leads to a collective understanding of the term performance drawing and addresses the key developments and future directions of this applied drawing process.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/performance-drawing-9781788313841

About the Authors:

Maryclare Foá was awarded her PhD at Camberwell, UAL; an acclaimed artist with work featured in Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art; and recently shortlisted for Moore Prize. Jane Grisewood awarded her PhD at Central Saint Martins, UAL, where she teaches experimental drawing; her artworks and artists books are acquired in international collections, and recent exhibitions include the Line/Extended at University of Hertfordshire (UHArts). Birgitta Hosea is a time-based media artist and Professor of Moving Image at the University for the Creative Arts, UK. Previously, Head of Animation at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, where she completed her PhD in animation as a form of performance in 2012. Carali McCall exhibits internationally, awarded her PhD at Central Saint Martins, UAL. A finalist in the 2017 Jerwood Drawing Prize and awarded Arts Council England.

Endorsements:

“Performance Drawing represents a highly developed record of practice-based research, tracing the developments in contemporary drawing, building on precedents that have led to emerging trends. It analyzes the radical departure from the acceptance of drawing as a canonical medium based on mark-making on two-dimensional surfaces, into real space towards performance, light projections, film and the use of new technologies. The texts brilliantly place all these developments into a clearly articulated context.” – Therese Bolliger, artist, Canada

“While narrative forms of drawing have found favor through numerous exhibitions and publications world-wide, drawing as an inherently process-driven performative event is still lacking accessible comprehensive theoretical research. Bridging two centuries of contemporary practice, Performance Drawing will fill a huge gap for artists, teachers, scholars and art publics.” – François Morelli, Concordia University, Canada

“A valuable historical primer that examines key examples of performance drawing from the last half-century and challenges established definitions and categorisations. The authors draw a picture of the changing boundaries between art forms, showing how the blurred lines between artistic disciplines are the product of an active performative process. In addition to practitioners, this should be read by anyone interested in emerging art practices.” – Malcom Cook, Associate Professor in Film, University of Southampton

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Blind Lines

Blind Lines, Jane Grisewood 2019
Line/Extended,Art and Design Gallery, University of Hertfordshire

Jane Grisewood works across drawing, photography, print and performance. Her practice is an ongoing exploration into time and memory where line, repetition and duration are recurring themes. Grisewood uses her body as a performative tool to create a line. During the opening reception of Line/Extended, Grisewood recreated her two-hour drawing performance Blind Lines in which she drew with graphite directly onto the Gallery wall with her eyes closed throughout. Visitors were invited to replicate the action and sensation of drawing ‘blind’ – exploring the relationship between artist and viewer.

‘UH Artists in Conversation’

“For Jane Grisewood in particular, the meditative process of drawing over a large vertical surface, with her eyes closed, is a meditative process that draws her attention inwards for the 2-hour duration of her performance.”

Dr Barbara Brownie

Blind Lines 2014-19
Performance Drawing, approx. 2 hours

Embodied Drawing Workshops

Embodied Drawing Workshop led by Maryclare Foa, Andrew Hall and Birgitta Hosea, Drawing Research Network Conference, Loughborough University, 2019

Embodied Drawing Workshop led by Birgitta Hosea (planned with Maryclare Foa), Hackney Wicked Festival, 2019

A History of Drawing

A Book of P.I.F.f.d.  (Pictures inspired by film and found through dreaming), Maryclare Foa (as R & F Mo), 2018

12 images (mixed media on paper) in a soft fabric sewn and folded book, for the exhibition A History of Drawing at Camberwell UAL Jan 2018-Feb 2018.

 

 

 

Notes on a Table, Folkestone, 2016

Notes on a Table (Folkestone Green) and (Folkestone Blue)
(Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea, Carali McCall)

Residency at Whelkboy Gallery, Creative Quarter, Folkestone, August 2016

MarKings: symposium and festival of performance and drawing

Notes on a Table (House of Illustration) 2016  (performance by Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea, Carali McCall)

8-9th July 2016, MarKings, Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins UAL/House of Illustration

Approximately: 240 x 128 cm, conversation, sound, graphite and coloured crayon on paper

Event review by John Miers in Spark Journal

Line Dialogue VI, 2013

Line Dialogue VI (2013), Carali McCall and Jane Grisewood

30-minute performance drawing in front of live audience, charcoal and graphite, overall 400 x 200 cm. ‘Draw to Perform’ exhibition at Performance Space, Hackney, London.