These drawings come from sustained observation of the human body.
They were made in single sittings from a live model, usually within a limited span of time. The constraint of time removes the possibility of careful correction. The drawing must respond immediately to what is seen. Each mark carries risk, and the image develops through a sequence of decisions that cannot be reversed.
Working from life introduces resistance. The body exists independently of the drawing and continually contradicts the artist’s assumptions. What appears simple at first becomes unstable: balance shifts, volumes turn, the structure of the figure resists simplification. The drawing emerges from negotiating that resistance.
Over time the subject becomes less the figure itself than the experience of perceiving it. Charcoal, color, erasure, and line register the movement of attention across the body. The drawings record that encounter rather than attempt to resolve it.
Having grown up in London, I encountered the work of painters such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff early on. Their insistence on the continued relevance of the human figure, and on the seriousness of looking, has remained important to me.
These drawings reflect an ongoing attempt to engage with the simplest and most demanding task in painting and drawing: the act of seeing another human being.
