Ritual Drawing. Digitally manipulated charcoal drawing. ©1983-2003 Ian Upton.
Ritual Drawing
A charcoal drawing created by standing in the centre of a large sheet of paper and drawing as far as I could reach. The drawing was executed in a single session. The drawing being complete when my box of charcoal ran out.
"This drawaing is important to me containing a lot of the foundations supporting my current creative practice. The notions of: 'defining and constructing self' and 'inside and outside' are elements clearly present in this early work.
For years this drawaing existed as a photographic image with black marks on a white background. I had never felt quite comfortable with this arrangement. In 2003 I realised that I was 'defining self' as a series of 'negative' black marks in a pure white space. I made a high resolution scan of the photograph and digitally inverted it. Now 'self' is represented as 'positive' white marks in the blackness of the void."
Ian Upton 2004.