Re-Representation Drawings

Working with/as History was a project that used drawings, small paintings and written texts produced between March 2009 and September 2010 to introduce and explore the notion of ‘Re-Representation’. ‘Re-Representation’ (R.R.) is a term that describes the ways in which we accumulate experiences of art works in the form of layers of direct and indirect encounters. Over the course of this period particular reference was made to: an encounter with Las Meninas in the Prado on 25. March 2009, an encounter with Guernica in Reina Sofia on 26. March, an encounter with the Corinne Motel in Memphis in December 1998, and ongoing encounters with The Simpsons each evening at 6.00. R.R. involves a process of responding to a ready-made image of a painting or related event, normally in the form of a postcard, photographic image, or a still taken from a TV documentary.

The R.R. process uses the act of drawing to record and investigate the range of encounters with the painting/event that are generated by the image. The accumulation of these encounters makes up the process of re-representation. The exploration of material is varied and open-ended using a number of working methods and approaches to media. Additionally, it involved both historical research and exploited fictionalised accounts. The works themselves are fabricated in layers that seem to shift between a rigorously constructed structural form and more ambiguous acts of concealment.

Four categories of re-representation developed through these drawings:
RR through proportional analysis
RR through a study of the viewing act
RR through a process of concealment
RR through a study of perspectival projection