Here is a collection of the drawings I did on a recent trip to Berlin. They are presented as they were drawn (in a square sketchbook). It was a trip that reminded me of what many cities lack in their quest to satisfy the needs of gentrified and sterile middle class tastes. It was still a bit wild and earnest. Enjoy!
Here are some drawings done in California. Between travelling with children and enduring quite brutal heat, this is not as robust an effort as I would usually make. Still, California is an endlessly fascinating place for me. Perched at the edge of the American dream and being filled with dreamers, it represents those frictions between fantasy and fulfilment. It is still frontier land and the freedom of exploration and discovery of that not so distant past is still in the daydream haze that fills the heads of its citizens.
I am quite rusty drawing Americans. In the past they were my bread and butter. I relished in the fat and filigree. I realise now that my approach to drawing people is less about the people themselves but their symbolic power. Their momentary pose which, like a statue, eschews mere representation and enshrines human achievement (no matter how small or bad or good).
To wake up from the dream that is California is profoundly sad. Invested in the palm trees and wide open vistas is the closest thing America comes to paradise and yet, because of this, like all things American, it becomes a victim of it’s own success. It now chokes on the exhaust of it’s own decadent dreams. Mixed in with moments of placid calm at the beach are unpredictable traffic jams and the same feverish capitalism that drove everyone out there in the first place (or was that the beaches?). But still, like dreams themselves, California works on a logic of its own. Here’s to the dreamers!
It is hard to think of any other activity that forces you to merge your inward and outward vision in the way that drawing does. This is particularly true of Reportage drawing and it’s greatest conceit is that it is a record of pure observation. What it really is is a record of thought, synthesis, presumption, judgment and looking. It is an act that requires the artist to participate in a dialogue about what is worth drawing and, importantly, why should we care? This is is the job of the artist. To make us care. To draw us in to a particular vision of the world that challenges us to think about the circumstances of others. The nature of the struggle to live and keep your head above water. This granularity is so perfectly captured in the rough marks of a drawing that the whisper or shout of humanity is ever present (even in less confident drawings). Enjoy!
These drawings are from my commute, Portsmouth and London. This collection of people were spotted in ordinary locations and playing out the routine of ordinary life. What they reveal is the remarkable theatre of the everyday that sees individuals and groups engaged in small and large dramas which inevitably, when drawn, have a distilled, symbolic weight. Out on the street we are always going somewhere else. I am mining the pavement to see if those transitory moments represent a kind of destination unto themselves. Perhaps drawing of this kind is a meditation on our time alone. Our time disconnected from origins and destinations where we confront our own thoughts among others similarly caught in transitory states. Enjoy!
Here are some new etchings. From a personal piece about true intentions called ‘dogs under the table’, to an illustration inspired by Bulgakov’s ‘Heart of a Dog’, and finally, a sugar lift experiment channeling film noir.
Enjoy! To see more please visit my website at www.louisnetter.com
These drawings were done on a single day in Walthamstow Market in London. It is a very different place from 1997 when I lived there. The market was fairly deserted and store fronts seemed tired and dated. It was a difficult place to draw and not draw attention. I ducked into many side alleys and roads to draw on my knee on bike stands and front porches. Often when worried about being noticed I was met with total indifference and other times, when seemingly shrouded from view, I had quiet observers appear and startle me. It would seem that drawing is for some such a foreign activity that is neither suspicious or provocative. Young kids are particularly uninterested, seeing what I am doing as either archaic or incomprehensible. I do wonder how people in general are engaging with the tangible realities of a shared planet of people when their heads are stuck in a digitally mediated world. Drawing brings such an intimacy to experience that it inevitably connects one to the day to day realities of the people around us. Long may we look up and not just down at the world around us.
Here are several drawings from a variety of locations. The drawings done in the natural history museum in London were done completely from direct observation and not from memory. This was an exciting challenge around unpredictable school kids and rubber necking tourists. I was happy to see I wasn’t the only person drawing in there. In fact, it seemed a popular activity. Not surprising considering the beauty of the building and the rich diversity of compliant subjects that don’t move! The more I consider my practice the more I realise that drawing is profoundly rewarding in so many ways. In no other act do we experience, in tangible ways, our struggle with understanding our perceptual reality and, how flexibly we can bend it to our purposes. Enjoy!
These drawing are from a recent trip to Poland to attend a conference on word and image at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz. I was presenting a paper about the experience of creating my graphic novel and how it posed some interesting questions about the dynamic relationship between text and image and how the narrative of the text takes on new dimensions through the medium of the comic. Some of the work from the graphic novel can be seen here…
To my eyes, Bydgoszcz was a friendly and beautiful city. I hope one can sense the warmth in these drawings through the clearly satirical bent, as there was full respect for the complex social, political and cultural landscape of the Poles. I got caught a few times, most notably by an old woman who sat next to me after I had quickly turned the page of a drawing I had just started of her. She sat next to me and rather unnervingly stared as I drew, giving audible bursts of approval. Needless to say I needed to find a new perch from which to draw.
Reportage drawing is the central focus of my Mphil/PhD study at the Royal College of Art and Design. I am looking at how the act reveals intuitive visual language and speaks to the multiple layers of both perception and commentary on the social, political and cultural conditions of the subjects themselves. I am also bringing in other reportage practitioners to contribute to a greater understanding of this highly challenging and revelatory act.
Enjoy Polska!
Here are some drawings done in London and St. Ives on holiday. We had some stunning weather and the beach was gorgeous. The seals were incredibly beautiful and for massive animals, moved with such grace underwater. The drawings reflect my interest in the exuberant moment. An ecstatic expression that while contained in lines and marks, extends our perception of the moment. Drawings capture moments but they also capture ideas. The drawings are prompted after all by an idea of something. Whether that is a formal interest in shape or tone or a commentary, it imprints the drawing with a purpose and a communal attachment to the circumstance of its making. What I like about drawing is that the thinking, feeling and making are unified into a singular, resonant image. It is difficult to strip out the humanity in a drawing and the echo of sensual experience in the act. We might own the drawing and control the circumstances of its making but we don’t own the experience of seeing the drawing. That is a delight all our own.
Polska part II
3 OctTags: drawing, louis netter, reportage drawing, satire, social commentary