Drawing Room

A major new commission by internationally renowned, London-based artist Aleksandra Mir. The project Drawing Room responds to the exploding energy of the fast-developing London skyline and explores drawing as a collective activity.

Taking over the gallery as a production space, Mir and her team of ten assistants create a live drawing installation, using only ‘Sharpie’ marker pens.  The work is based on the architecture of London, and includes expansive street scenes depicted from a variety of different angles. Working directly onto a specialist canvas backdrop commonly used in theatre, the resulting mural is 4 metres high and over 24 metres in length.

Mir says: ‘It is a collective live drawing extravaganza resulting in one mural sized work, choreographed by me and performed together with a group of assistants who will be working with me in the gallery space in full public view.  My objectives are to push drawing beyond the confines of the small-scale, manageable sheet of paper towards a larger unruly reality; at once a stage set, a choreography and a performative act. It will blend many art forms into one continuous process and activity where a lot is determined beforehand, but as much left to the energies and personalities of the people who will occupy the space and the daily goings on there.’

Working with a team, Mir seeks to foster an ethos of shared achievement while creating an analogy to the collective life of the city. The process of collaboration and the use of atypical materials – in this case the ‘Sharpie’ marker pen – are both integral to the artist’s working practice. Mir has drawn with the ‘Sharpie’ pen on a large scale for many years, transforming this popular everyday marker pen into a tool for experimentation. She manages to achieve complex patterns and painterly effects with the fading marker, creating works that are imbued with intense energy and remain a record of the physical labour required to make them.

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Aleksandra Mir lives in London. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include The Space Age, M – Museum, Leuven; Discoteca, Magazzino, Rome; Visionaries of St. Pauli, Betongalerie, Hamburg (2013); Justice, Triple A, Los Angeles (2012); The Seduction of Galileo Galilei, Mercer Union, Toronto and Whitney Museum, New York (2011); Triumph, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2009); Switzerland and Other Islands, Kunsthaus, Zurich (2006). Group exhibitions include Energy and Process, Tate Modern, London (2013); 9 Bienal du Mercosul, Porto Alegre (2013); Monuments, Lismore Castle (2013); Pursuit of Perfection, South London Gallery (2012); ArtandPress, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2012); Once Upon a Time, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2011); Plus Ultra, MACRO Testaccio, Rome (2010); 53 Venice Biennale (2009).

This exhibition has been supported by Elephant Trust and Cass Art. Cass Art is committed to encouraging everyone to realise their creative talents by providing the world’s best materials at accessible prices and supporting art initiatives across the UK.