JOHN VINCENT STEVENSON
Modified Drawings
18/05/19 - 15/06/19
PRESS RELEASE
This exhibition brings together a collection of (modified) compositions taken from a project in 2004, originally designed to investigate ideas that might confront spatial representation within drawings.
They could be considered architectural in that they involve space and the relationship between spaces and structure, but have an uncertain dialogue with the issue of scale. The strict rules of technical drawing are set aside, as the aim with these studies is the tension between positive and negative; real or implied physical boundaries.
As a method of construction, the works are dissected and reassembled with other compositions, and form a new alliance with existing drawings.
The ambiguity of solid and empty space encourage that they be read as a ‘plan’ or ‘section’, or even a fusion of both. Lines and marks that enter a zone outside of the drawing, direct and change the varying limits of the work, rejecting the conventional rectangle of paper, altering the compositions anatomy. This has in turn transferred the drawing to the realm of ‘object’.
There is detectable differences in control of pen between the ’Threshold’ drawings of 2008 and untitled drawings of 2018 because this is the time I became aware of the effects of Parkinson’s in my motor skills. Indeed, the fragmented assembly of the works became a divisive technique, and was a direct parallel to the way I conceived spatial connections and mental perceptions. The fragmentary nature of recent works, which appear to be ‘pulled out’, can be a description of how I feel my mind now organises itself.
The history and timeline of the drawings spanning fourteen years hold associations of architectural boundaries that have personal significance and emotional memories during this time.
JVS 2019