Automatic Drawing
This post is part of an on-going series of reflections for a commission from The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. You can read all the posts here. You can view the final images here.
I’ve been looking back over drawings made over the months which will be installed beside photographic images for my commission from the Tavistock & Portman NHS Mental Health Trust.
These strange maps started through automatic drawing, actually in response to having a million Zoom meetings. I was struggling to concentrate and started drawing, putting pen to paper. They started to take on shapes of finger prints, topological maps, labyrinths, representing places that existed in my mind. As I started to reflect the commission and my experiences of racism I continued drawing as a way to process the distressing thoughts and memories. They slowly took on a new meaning — a way to stabilise me when thinking about how to push ideas forward and what to create.
It seems strange incorporating them into the physical work that will hang on the wall, but it feels important to honour the process that has taken place across the commission. The work will be installed in the next couple of months.