Paper, ink and calligraphy
My drawing practice over many years has involved responding to the relationships of life cycles and their bilateral rhythms within natural and social environments. By appropriating and synthesising aspects of these relationships I aspire to create an individual language that imbues the recording of visual perception, both physical and nonphysical.
The National Art Schools chapel is a round building with a circular plan thus a ‘rotunda’ in architectural terms.
Over thirty days I will install a series of drawings in an organic grid in the ‘Back Space’ made with ink on A4 paper using an asemic style of abstract calligraphy.
I will endeavour to respond using instinct, empathy, intuition and emotion that respond to the nature of the space over time
The chapel may be viewed as ‘emblematic’, a symbol of eternity and never-ending existence, a space of natural balance with no beginning or end.
Over its history it has a been an active space from chapel above with bath house below, through to library and on to drawing studios.
In some sense it may be viewed as a space with its own semantic memory. The series of drawings installed will relate to the kinetic and static states related to the occupation of the space over time.
I hope to create meaning out of ‘symbols’ and how they are interpreted playing off the relationship between these and the chapel’s social and cultural histories past and present.
John Stanfield
September 2023
Open Campus hours until 20 October
