The Importance of Procedure

Abstract

In my work it is important to start off with a system, an algorithm or set of rules because it creates the conditions for something new to happen, it creates a field in which something can materialize. I’ve been playing tennis since I was five, I come from a tennis family, my father was a professional tennis player, tennis is in my DNA. In tennis there is a field called a court, which is rectangular and is reminiscent of the pages I draw on. In a game of tennis players engage in a game defined by a set of rules, responding to each other’s moves reacting in a back and forth motion, having control and losing control. It’s how their character and identity come out as they play within the rules, sometimes pushing the limits and the boundaries of the rules which makes the game interesting. The set of rules in my practice enables me to start my work and creates the entry point to playing the game. There are three important stages of my practice in which a shift of control happens, and the work starts to grow. The use of a system is where the work begins, an entry point and place free of choice or artistic intention or taste, this rule lets me perform a task with a very clear outline and a specific standard defined. During the second phase of the drawing process is where chance intervenes and the inaccuracy of the human hand begins to perform and take place. The drawing starts to live, the “absent author” as Isabelle Graw refers to, begins to draw, the emergence of my opponent in the game. The loss of control, the slip of the ruler, the spill of the pens inks, the inconsistency of the hand. In the third step there is another shift. It is where the artist acts, the artist takes control removing and correcting the glitches performed in the second step. Finally, this process concludes with the satisfaction that all visible imperfections have been hidden. This is a process that relies on itself for production using my personal ‘failures’ and chance interventions as a means to form growth and direction in the completed work. I go through the experience of having control, losing control and once again re-gaining control. Step 1. The rule Step 2. The failure to execute that rule Step 3. The fixing the failure of that rule.