LONDON.- Green Cardamom gallery presents Drawn from Life, a trilogy of exhibitions that examine process, memory and embodied space, and form, in the drawing practice of over 20 contemporary artists from Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Working in diverse visual languages, the exhibitions, spread over a year, present the viewer with an amalgamation of techniques, vision and content. Though styles vary dramatically from one artist to the next, all create an intimate relationship between artist and spectator. The works at Green Cardamom differ vastly in type, ranging from delicate drawings referencing South Asian miniature to installations in paper, plastic and light that challenge the usual aesthetic and functional associations of drawing.
As Drawn from Life suggests, the artists in this exhibition take their inspiration from life, whether from the marks left by nature, from spaces embodied by memory, or from the physical forms in life that surround them: inspiration comes from pieces of fallen tree bark, the flight path of birds, the patterns of old Persian carpets and the lines of the human body.
The first in the trilogy, Drawing Process, will be on display at Green Cardamom from June 12 to July 12. The works of twelve artists from Pakistan, India, Iran, Germany and Sri Lanka can be divided into two categories: those wishing to relinquish control and rely on chance and intuition to guide their drawing, and those who work in a more deliberate manner to conceive premeditated ideas.
The second exhibition, Drawing Space, looks at the inhabitation of space, and runs from July 23 to September 27. Whether through mental habitation such as memory, or through physical objects, space is articulated for these artists through its embodiment. As with Drawing Process, works by more than eight artists explore this topic, stretching their understanding of the intangible notions of space in their practice. The final exhibition, Drawing Form, will be exhibited in collaboration with Nature Morte in their new European space. This final part of the exhibition explores the forms in life, from the textures of leather and skin to the line of the human body executed in different media.
Drawn from Life offers viewers a unique experience, encountering works from a range of contemporary artists based in the US, Europe and Asia, that challenge preconceived notions of what drawing could be.
