Fray and Fragment, Drawings, 2011
FRAY and FRAGMENT
Exposed to the elements and human activity, our surroundings bear the marks of decay and use. This physical residue is the starting point for these ongoing series of drawings. My interest in the inevitable process entropy - of things breaking down or wearing out - is the fact that something new has to happen. A change takes place, something is replaced, repaired, or just abandoned, and in that process our attention is drawn to the physical impressions of use that we leave behind.
Photography, sketching and memory are my ways of gathering information. From these sources I isolate areas of pattern and rhythm and make small drawings, which become the starting point for larger, intensely detailed drawings which are built up with repetitive, rhythmic marks using Indian ink and a fine mapping pen. My drawings are about ideas and possibilities, and with each step the image is transformed, taking on a new existence, a reality that exists only as an image in itself.
Betty Gannon
UNTANGLING THE LINES…
Some thoughts by Ian Wieczorek
“Drawing is the sum of directions.” - Andre L'Hote
Drawing. It’s a word we are all familiar with, so much so we tend to lose sight of the full compass of its meaning. Remember, you can draw conclusions, draw attention, draw blood. That sense of extraction, of eliciting, of drawing out, is at the heart of the activity we call drawing. It is a record of engagement between artist and subject - whether that subject exists in the real world or whether it resides in the imagination. Or somewhere in between.
Drawing is often associated with expressive gesture, reflexive and direct. But Gannon’s Fray and Fragment is a more processed body of work, an exhibition that exploits mark-making in its most measured form, using rigorous technique and austere, unforgiving materials: mapping pen and Indian ink. The results are not mediated by colour or the supple plasticity of paint, charcoal or graphite. Just black ink and unprocessed line. But within these limitations, Gannon finds a lyrical eloquence that belies the minimal qualities of her chosen medium, an eloquence that relies on rhythm, repetition and meticulous application.
Fray and Fragment is grounded in the physicality of the real world, in everyday things that might easily go unnoticed or ignored, in the fragmentations and unravellings of our everyday surroundings. Yet for Gannon these small things possess resonance and significance as visible, material manifestations of larger, less tangible phenomena, the processes and dynamics of entropy and change. The directness in Gannon’s drawing is her ability to recognise and isolate these ciphers, and then to distil them into line-based forms and compositions that operate both in a formal context and also as a commentary on and exploration of the greater world experience.
Ian Wieczorek (artist and curator
Exposed to the elements and human activity, our surroundings bear the marks of decay and use. This physical residue is the starting point for these ongoing series of drawings. My interest in the inevitable process entropy - of things breaking down or wearing out - is the fact that something new has to happen. A change takes place, something is replaced, repaired, or just abandoned, and in that process our attention is drawn to the physical impressions of use that we leave behind.
Photography, sketching and memory are my ways of gathering information. From these sources I isolate areas of pattern and rhythm and make small drawings, which become the starting point for larger, intensely detailed drawings which are built up with repetitive, rhythmic marks using Indian ink and a fine mapping pen. My drawings are about ideas and possibilities, and with each step the image is transformed, taking on a new existence, a reality that exists only as an image in itself.
Betty Gannon
UNTANGLING THE LINES…
Some thoughts by Ian Wieczorek
“Drawing is the sum of directions.” - Andre L'Hote
Drawing. It’s a word we are all familiar with, so much so we tend to lose sight of the full compass of its meaning. Remember, you can draw conclusions, draw attention, draw blood. That sense of extraction, of eliciting, of drawing out, is at the heart of the activity we call drawing. It is a record of engagement between artist and subject - whether that subject exists in the real world or whether it resides in the imagination. Or somewhere in between.
Drawing is often associated with expressive gesture, reflexive and direct. But Gannon’s Fray and Fragment is a more processed body of work, an exhibition that exploits mark-making in its most measured form, using rigorous technique and austere, unforgiving materials: mapping pen and Indian ink. The results are not mediated by colour or the supple plasticity of paint, charcoal or graphite. Just black ink and unprocessed line. But within these limitations, Gannon finds a lyrical eloquence that belies the minimal qualities of her chosen medium, an eloquence that relies on rhythm, repetition and meticulous application.
Fray and Fragment is grounded in the physicality of the real world, in everyday things that might easily go unnoticed or ignored, in the fragmentations and unravellings of our everyday surroundings. Yet for Gannon these small things possess resonance and significance as visible, material manifestations of larger, less tangible phenomena, the processes and dynamics of entropy and change. The directness in Gannon’s drawing is her ability to recognise and isolate these ciphers, and then to distil them into line-based forms and compositions that operate both in a formal context and also as a commentary on and exploration of the greater world experience.
Ian Wieczorek (artist and curator
