Cross my heart and hope to die


Date: 2015
Framed: 1150mm x 800mm
Materials: Pencil and Ink on Archival Paper


Part of “I love You” solo exhibition


Most of the drawings in this range were displayed in a half moon on easels around the centre piece on the infinity curve in a photographic studio.

These drawings faced their backs toward the centrepiece in this exhibition. (insert links to centrepiece and exhibition write up?)

My drawing process starts out very organic. It usually starts with a figure or object that is placed wherever the subject-matter feels comfortable on the paper.

As I draw, the narrative usually starts unfolding, and I add objects or more figures etc.

This way of drawing means the particular subject matter often spill over to paper to the next paper. Something like a book where you have to turn the page.

It is in this way that the line between pages become symbolic and therefore important to me.
Figures, objects and titles I randomly find on social media, magazines or on the internet.

It usually starts with me stumbling upon a picture of a figure that reminds me of a specific moment in my own life, and so the process starts.

Because I so often use stock imagery, the figures become part of my story and loose their initial identity.
I therefore leave out or add certain elements such as faces (that I leave out) and tattoos (that I add to give the figure a new identity), which I guess makes the process less organic and more controlled. At the same time this also result in the drawing process becoming more sculptural and articulated.

Titles are often extracts from songs, text messages, or found on a status on social media etc, as they remind me of the specific narrative unfolding.

There is no specific order, it can either be finding the drawing subject matter such as a figure in a magazine first (it most often happen this way), or it can be finding the title first and I work the narrative from there.

The exhibition was carefully curated, and drawings were being displayed upside down, horizontal on the easels, leaning against or hanging on the wall. This all added to the abstract almost sculptural nature of my process as well as to the drawings themselves..

The line that the spaces between the papers in the different drawings formed, clearly lead the viewer from one work to the next, forming a narrative within the narrative.

Below: Journal links related to drawing – from very first posted to the latest*
• Filling the conceptual void..
• #tbt #The Conceptual Catwalk #5
• #tbt #7 Drawing out the subject
• Emotion Pictures
• Writing Again – Drawing Again



Cross my heart and hope to die