Some thoughts on new drawings ...

I've been quite conscious of my work process in the last while - more than usual - because it seems to be evolving quite rapidly. This is, quite naturally, bringing all kinds of interesting questions to light for me in relation to the way I work, why I am drawn to do what I do: the 'why' of the 'how' if you will.This body of work appears to be resolving itself around repetition/recapitulation, and consistent references to specific patterns and shapes. This is something that had begun to make itself known with the initial work for Archives of Absence, but for the most part, I chalked that up to working in different materials and with different content than I had before. Now, I'm beginning to think otherwise.A bit OCD? Maybe ... but there's other things at work here:What does the reiteration of form or object say about the object itself, and/or about the need to repeat or recapitulate the form  - and the doing? Certainly for this body of work, focused as it is on birds' nests, this form of making does certainly tap into action as an instinctual and/or ritualized process.There's also my predilection for squares, circles, and grids:  circles and squares are two of the ‘perfect’ forms, and they seem to encapsulate notions of balance and harmony, this being inherent in equilateral/bilaterally symmetrical shapes. The way these shapes relate to space is important here too - their extension into space is the same in all directions. These are democratic shapes - they occupy and contain with equality. Grids and patterns based on grids work in a similar way, especially when used as a means of expanding or contracting the scale of an object, or measuring space. Grids = Order, Containment, Regularity, Pattern. They allow for variation, but within rigidly set boundaries.

 This repetition can create blindness through its sameness, on one level ... that jaded sense of “seen that before”/ “same old, same old” ... we become desensitized to the things we see repeatedly. But the converse is also true, and something I want to explore much more: if we are presented with a sequence/series/reiteration of the same object or form, we are also (at least I am) drawn to the details: the hide-and-seek of finding the differences between these objects which are essentially the same. It is these threads that reveal independent narratives attached to (and issuing from) each object.

So in the end perhaps this is becomes about seeing and choice,  and the connections between the process of  making and the process of recognition.