An interview with Laura F Gibellini, Madrid, November 2016,
by way of an introduction to the project blog and some of themes that may be
explored herein.
Upon entering Laura’s flat in Madrid I’m surrounded by
meticulous wall drawings and works in progress for her forthcoming exhibition
at Slowtrack gallery, spring 2017. We begin by discussing these large scale paint
and graphite wall pieces and Laura’s recent works on paper. These, like much of
her recent output, are centred on the project of atmospheric conditions and trying
to make these solid through drawing.
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| Wall drawing (detail) |
Temporal density
As the conversation develops it turns out that we have a
shared interest in the concept of time, which emerges in relation to the
glacial time represented in the older wall drawing that faces us on the wall opposite.
This is in conjunction with the time taken to produce such painstaking work,
and the prospective historical time that these drawings will occupy when they
are painted over and become the sediment of the building’s walls. Here lies
another point of agreement; enjoying transitory work that doesn’t hang around
for too long. These magnificent undertakings sit in contrast to the more recent
drawings produced to accompany a relay-race of translation from image to text
and back to image again, which are destined to sit alongside a series of poems
written to accompany an exhibition of photography. These images are developed through drawing from
photographs, and demonstrate the close relationship between
drawing and photography in Laura’s work. Laura uses and references photography
in her images in a deliberate way to suggest a sense of a viewer in the space,
of someone looking at the scene before you. As she says, images are always
mediated through their maker and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
The method of working from photograph through carbon paper to picture surface emphasises
this distance and also allows their temporal mediation. In this respect the drawings
occupying a place between the extended time of drawing and that of the fraction
of a second of the photographic image they transcribe. It is this prolonged attention
to a fleeting moment gives them their stillness.
Process and problems
We discuss the result of a recent residency in Munich, where
Laura was drawing onto glass with graphite. The work is labour-intensive and
involves drawing onto a prepared ground and firing the outcomes at a specific
temperature. The final piece didn’t behave as the test versions did, leading to
an inverted image. Whilst the alchemy happening in the kiln wasn’t entirely as
expected it led to new products and processes entirely befitting of the subject
matter such as the impression of lens flare, again suggesting a photographer
and a viewer. The importance of embracing (and even setting) problems such as
this is a recurrent theme within our conversation and Laura’s recent article
for MaHKUscript,
as practitioners exploring ideas through practice. Sandblasting these pieces
(to address an issue of colour intensity) further increased their sense of
snowblindness, and therefore adopted the peculiarities of an unpredictable and
wayward process as a strength; just as Richard Sennett (in The Craftsman) describes working with friction, rather than against
it. The lesson being to work less, in a sense. Laura proposes that work needs
to be difficult for her to learn from it, but on the other hand the challenge
might not need to be quite so arduous
and may lead to a recalibration of time and output in order to tackle this from
a different angle in coming projects.
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| Work in progress, paper from Vlieger |
The conversation pursues this theme of working with and
through materials to discuss recent drawings using extraordinarily loud paper
bought in Amsterdam following the SAR conference where we met at Easter. This
has proved to be another self-initiated challenge to habit, in this case the
subtle palette Laura has developed. The strip of colour in the large scale wall
drawing is a reference to weather maps, and the colours themselves are a
reference to Laura’s own work and its palette. Her work has moved through
domestic spaces to mapped spaces, then on to weather maps to represent the
conditions of the space. Laura has adopted the colour chart that represents the
temperature conditions, but replaces these colours with those from her “key to
the artworks”; a chart of colours distilled from her back catalogue. This has
been given a sharp wake-up call by the intensely bright paper from Amsterdam’s
tremendous paper shop Vlieger, which constitutes a challenge from Laura to her
own strategies and comfort zone and brings a graphic sensibility to the
drawings.
Line of best fit
During our conversation, we flit between projects to explore
the temporal aspects of Laura’s work, and the methods and materials used to
produce them. By doing so we emphasise the networked nature of thoughts through
practice, making it difficult to discuss projects as discrete units. We discuss
the frustrations of linearity in this respect, and the demands of writing that
are sometimes at odds with the rhizomatic, spatial relationship between ideas
as worked through within practice. This is a theme we explore in relation to
the structure and layout of texts for publication that arise from practice.
Laura’s previous writing for the Journal of Artistic Research tackles the
spatial aspect of her concerns, and for her forthcoming Drawing Research
Journal paper Laura tackled the fragmentation of thought through practice
within the earlier drafts of the paper. The preference given to words over
pictures in the structure of academic writing leads us to discuss the roles of
text and image in making an argument, and then to other ‘marked terms’ in
visual arts practice: drawing as lesser than painting (as Laura says, “drawing
is the little sister”), art as superior to illustration. Which is nonsense, in
practice, especially given the articulacy of the accomplished work I have been looking at for the past hour.
We finish our coffees with Laura recommending galleries to visit in Madrid. We arrange to meet at
Slowtrack the following day, where I am able to see both a subtle and provocative
exhibition based on the theme of text and textiles, and also the venue for
Laura’s forthcoming exhibition. On the basis of the work I’ve seen so far the show promises to be a rewarding affair, and the following posts will unravel some of the questions and processes encountered during its making.
