Abstract Drawing Seminar

An afternoon of presentations and in conversations exploring ideas presented in Abstract Drawing. The afternoon will include:

Curating Abstract Drawing 

Artist Richard Deacon will talk about his curatorial approach to Abstract Drawing.

Drawing, Withdrawing: Degrees of Abstraction by Anna Lovatt

Writer Anna Lovatt delivers a talk that examines the work of Anni Albers, Frederick Hammersley, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Sol LeWitt and Darrell Viner, all of whom, she argues, make visible the links between formal abstraction and processes of resistance and disengagement operative in the world at large.

David Batchelor and Emma McNally in conversation with curator Michelle Cotton

Curator Michelle Cotton will draw out differences and parallels in the artistic approaches of Batchelor and McNally to expose the meaning of abstraction for artists Batchelor and McNally. Artist and author of new title ‘The Luminous and the Grey’, David Batchelor is best known for his colourful work in two and three dimensions and for his book ‘Chromophobia’.  Of his Magic Hour drawings Richard Deacon writes: ‘the drawings hide behind their own presence, they seem in the way of themselves’. Emma McNally makes large-scale drawings that Richard Deacon describes as ‘an index of all those ways in which the unseen, the unknown, the deep and distant are registered on the surface.  She is an instrument and the drawing is what the instrument produces or maybe plots’.

David Austen, Richard Deacon and Alison Wilding in Conversation

The three artists in discussion, with Drawing Room directors Mary Doyle and Kate Macfarlane, will discuss the role of drawing within each of their practices and the nature of abstraction.  Of painter David Austen Deacon has written ‘the painstaking construction of Austen’s two drawings are the consequence of exquisite control over the application of paint…Austen releases a drawing from the paper with a fine sable brush’.  And of the two drawings by sculptor Alison Wilding Deacon has suggested they seem ‘the product of unplanned execution …built up by a process of tracking and looking and attempting to clear up …whatever was there in the first place’.

David Austen (born 1960, Harlow, UK). Lives and works in London, United Kingdom. Selected solo exhibitions: 2013: Billboard for Edinburgh, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; 2012: Rob Tufnell, London, UK; 2011: Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London, UK; 2010: Smoke Town and End of Love, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK;; 2009: Man Smoking, Schiavo Mazzonis Gallery, Rome, Italy; 2009: The End of Love, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, UK; 2008: David Austen & Man Ray, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; 2007: Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK; 2006: Smoking Moon, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; 2004: Darkland, PEER, London, UK. 2001: Edge of the World, Christ Church Mansion, Ipswich, UK; 1998: Inverleith House, Edinburgh, UK; 1997: Mead Gallery, Warwick, UK; Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK; 1988: Arnolfini, Bristol, UK;  1987: Serpentine Gallery, London, UK.

David Batchelor (born 1955, Dundee, UK). Lives and works in London. Selected solo exhibitions: 2013: Parede por Parede, Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, São Paulo, Brazil; Flatlands (travelling), Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Spike Island, Bristol, UK; 2012: Magic Hour, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands; 2012: Brighton-Palermo ReMix, Brighton Festival, Brighton, UK; Slugfest, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil; Magic Pavement, Pavement Gallery, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK;2010: Chromophilia, Paco Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 2008: The Backlights, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil; 2007: Unplugged, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; 2006: South Bank Spectrum, South Bank Centre, London, UK; 2005: Ten Silhouettes, Gloucester Road Undergound Station, London, UK; 2004: Shiny Dirty, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; 2003: Spectrum of Hackney Road, Wilkinson Gallery, London, UK; 2000: Electric Colour Tower, Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, UK.

Michelle Cotton is senior curator, Firstsite, Colchester, UK. She has curated over 30 exhibitions and film screenings including projects at Kettles Yard, Cambridge; Tate Britain, Tate Modern, London; Tate St Ives, Whitechapel Gallery, London and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein including solo exhibitions by Michel Auder, Henning Bohl, Wolfgang Breuer, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Paul Sietsema and Stephen Sutcliffe. She has published numerous reviews, essays and articles and is the author of the recently published Design Research Unit 1942 – 72 (Koenig Books, 2011).

Richard Deacon CBE is a Turner Prize-winning sculptor and a writer. He has exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide over the course of his 30-year career. A major survey of his work opened at Tate Britain, London in early 2014. A collected editionof his writings, So, And, If, But. Writings 1970–2012 (Richter | Fey Verlag, 2014), has recently been published in both English and German.

Anna Lovatt is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Manchester. She has written extensively on Minimal, post-Minimal and Conceptual art and the practice of drawing within these contexts, including essays on artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Sol LeWitt, Dorothea Rockburne, Anne Truitt and Bob Law. Her writing has been widely published in journals including Artforum, Art History, October, Oxford Art Journal, Tate Papers and Word and Image.

Emma McNally (born 1969, Essex, UK). Lives and works in London. Selected solo exhibitions: 2012: Atoms Insects, Mountains, Stars (travelling), Young Gallery at Salisbury Library, Salisbury, UK; Trinity Contemporary, London, UK; 2008: Fields, Charts, Soundings, T1+2 Gallery, London, UK.

Alison Wilding (born 1948, Blackburn, UK).  Lives and works in London. Selected solo exhibitions: 2013: Display, Tate Britain, London, UK; 2011: Alison Wilding: How the Land Lies, New Art Centre, Roche Court Sculpture Park, Salisbury, UK; 2008: Alison Wilding: Tracking, Karsten Schubert, London, UK; 2000: Alison Wilding: Contract, The Henry Moore Foundation Studio, Halifax, UK; 1996: Alison Wilding: Sculptures, Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle de Calais, Calais, France; 1993: Alison Wilding: Bare, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; 1991: Alison Wilding: Immersion, Sculpture from Ten Years, Tate Gallery, Liverpool, UK; 1988: Alison Wilding: Sculpture, Asher/Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, US; 1987: Projects: Alison Wilding, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, US; 1986: Alison Wilding: New Sculpture, Richard Salmon Ltd., London, UK 1985: Serpentine Gallery, London, UK.