Drawing Acts Drawing Act III Charmaine Watkiss 6 October 2020 – 6 January 2021 Back IMG-3643-min-1.jpg PA190171-min-1.jpg PA190095-min-1.jpg PA190144-min1-1.jpg Drawing Act III is a project led by Charmaine Watkiss with Young Girlz Matter – a self-formed group of students from UAE Secondary School. Like many of the artists included in Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium, Charmaine is interested in using ritualistic and meditative processes of drawing to respond to the current social and political climate. Over the duration of the exhibition, she has been leading practical workshops to uncover unconscious and personal responses. Charmaine created a supportive environment and allowed the young women to escape into drawing as an outlet. For the challenges present for young people growing up through this period, drawing was used to nurture mindfulness, wellbeing, and self-expression, which there is often little space for in the school environment. Over several weeks, a sense of collaboration grew in the group, as they worked fluidly across their own and each other’s drawings. The last session was held during half term, when they came voluntarily to Drawing Room, to continue drawing and voicing opinions about their experiences and reflecting on the images which came out, as if from nowhere – ‘I don’t know what I am doing but I like it.’ Charmaine Watkiss holds an MA in Drawing, from the UAL Wimbledon College of Art and was shortlisted for the Womxn of Colour Art Award 2020. Recent exhibitions include The Abstract Truth of Things, Tiwani Contemporary, 2020; Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery, 2020; Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, 2019; Against Static, Wimbledon Space, 2018. Thank you to all involved: Amira Ayim, Batesba Bassano-Giusti, Faith Adewusi, Hope Adewusi, Lucy Eckersley, Malika Saidou, Maria Michalak and Ruth Agho, Young Girlz Matter Barbara Lassey, Teacher, UAE Secondary School Betsy Dadd, Learning Curator, Drawing Room Charmaine Watkiss, Artist Hannah Dalton, Teacher, UAE Secondary School Sheyamali Sudesh, Learning Coordinator, Drawing Room Related Content Exhibition Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium 10 September 2020 – 1 November 2020 See more related content Scrapbook The work with the girls is a snapshot in time where they can just be themselves beyond the seismic changes in a world which they will inherit. Charmaine Watkiss, Artist We’re always thinking about what happens in the future. But with this, you don’t have to think about what happens next, you just think about what you’re doing right now. Ruth I wanted to see how the group could create their own visual language, systems and symbols. We explored mark-making and patterning, as almost a meditative exercise. The quiet in the room was the sound of them each disappearing into a space of colour, shapes and lines. What flowed out onto the paper was accessed from somewhere, exactly where, we do not know. Charmaine Watkiss, Artist