Drawing out preconceptions

Media Release
20 September 2010

Drawing out preconceptions

An exhibition that investigates preconceptions about both drawing as an art medium and the usual processes around staging exhibitions opens at the Blue Oyster Art Project Space next month.

Drawing (For the Given Value of Drawing) is the culmination of an experimental project in which seven artists addressed interaction and interrelation as an exhibition strategy through the vernacular of drawing.
“Drawing is not just pieces of paper and pencils. We started by asking how we could draw in ways that are not necessarily as we understood drawing to be,” says one of the artists, Gabrielle Amodeo.

”We wanted to question what constitutes a drawing, where and how drawing takes place, and what the artist’s role is in the drawing.”

Stack by Gabrielle Amodeo: (photo credit Rabdeep Singh)
The group chose to steer away from a set theme, using purely the word ‘drawing’ as a starting point. The works produced include site-specific installation, film, animation, objects and performance. Rather than forcing an outcome, the group wanted the process itself to govern how the projects and the final exhibition developed.

Another of the artists, Jill Sorensen, says the actual format of exhibitions was examined by the group during a residency at Rm in Auckland during August.
“We developed projects and works on site while the gallery was closed, re-opening a different exhibition each week. This process challenged the usual dynamic of an exhibition being in stasis after install. These projects have been developed further and will be presented in Dunedin as the final part of the process.

“The show at Rm had a time and performance aspect to it, while the Blue Oyster exhibition is more about the space and location. This difference offers an important change of pace between the two shows. We want to use the three sections of Blue Oyster to trace a network through the spaces of interrelating propositions on the related acts of drawing, thinking and looking,” says Jill.
Drawing (For the Given Value of Drawing) is by Gabrielle Amodeo, Akiko Diegel, Matt Molloy, Nell Nutsford, Ryuzo Nishida, Rabdeep Singh, and Jill Sorensen. It opens on 5 October and runs until 30 October.

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