Assignment 8 - Line Your Body

    For the final assignment I decided to connect the drawing to body by taking away what is usually the heaviest relied on of the senses when painting - sight. To do this I arranged the materials in a way so that I would still be able to find them during the process and wore a blindfold to prevent myself from seeing the piece which would have caused me to make decisions based on the visual instead of the body’s instinct that I wanted to rely on. I chose to film in black and white to establish this sense of unknowing in the viewer (since you are unable to see what colours I am working with) in order to mimic the obliviousness that I felt while creating this piece. During the process I spilled one of the paints and missed the canvas a few times but I decided to work with it. I did the painting in my garage and opened the garage door to create better ventilation while using the spray paint.  

    The final painting isn’t meant to be beautiful or symbolic. Instead, it is a recording of my movement and instinct when it comes to creating art - a piece created by the body without allowing yourself to make any decisions beyond what motions feel right.

Later addition to post:

    I was inspired to create a motion drawing by William Anastasi’s subway drawings. However, I didn’t realize just how much I connected to this work until after I had already created this piece and then decided to look into him further. Later this night I read his interview regarding the subway work where he states “When there’s motion, let that motion, rather than preditermination, be the energy for that drawing - rather than consulting the aesthetic prejudice of the moment, which we usually do when we draw if our eyes our open.” I thought it was crazy reading this after I had already created the below piece because this idea of his so closely relates to the blind painting that it feels crazy I didn’t see it before creating the painting. Thinking on it a major difference would be that Anastasi’s walking and subway drawings are records of motion not related to drawing that the body does naturally which mine are not since it was instinctual and directly related to drawing - meaning I must’ve subconsciously picked up on the element of a type of “blind”drawing from his work but not the naturalism of motion in his drawings.

 Video:

Reveal:

Painting in final workstation

Painting revealed 

Dimensions: 24” x 18”

Mediums used: (in order) - ink mixed with water, black spray paint, purple spray paint, yellow spray paint, a mixture of blue acrylic paints, modelling paste, and indigo acrylic paint mixed with water.