|
Although the public face of art revolves mostly around finished objects, I can't help that learning and experimenting are my driving forces in making, much more so than "finishing" or "perfection".
|
|
|
first sprouting leaves on a rosebush on the left, a plant I don't yet know on the right
|
|
|
My best works have all followed the formula of "what happens if I draw/paint/sculpt/print this thing or kind of thing so and so many times or everyday for this long?" Where "so and so many times" has 30 as its minimum threshold, but hundreds of times is much better (kitchen studies, R*pes at the National Gallery), and some of these experiments go into the thousands (commuter drawings, memory drawings from my dayjob in a nursing home). I don't think I have a personal style so much as that every group of work, every experimental sequence has its own style, born of necessities not all of which I understand.
|
|
|
|
chestnut seedling
|
|
|
The output of those learning processes tends to be the group of all of those works as a whole, or at least a significant chunk of them, rather than any individual piece. They make much more sense taken together. Stuff happens not just in individual drawings, but in the differences between them, and the time that passes from one to the other.
|
|
|
I am always trying to do something just beyond my actually proven confident ability. I can't just repeat what I've already successfully done. I'm always doing the thing I can't yet do. This is an immense pleasure, and also terrifying. There is no way for me to control the outcome, to be sure that it will work, again, this time. What if after having done a certain kind of study hundred or thousands of times I realize that I went about it the wrong way, or that I will never be able to do the thing I am trying to do?
|
|
|
This is not a way of working that lends itself easily to selling individual pieces, but I can't change it. When I try everything goes to shit. I need to work in this way, doing things I don't quite know how to do over and over again, to work well and with joy.
|
|
|
|
some of the planting potatoes that did not find space in my garden any more - the last one done when I was looking at a lot of Moebius' drawings. Potatoes really do look a lot like alien space ships if you look closely...
|
|
|
In March a side project of mine was to draw at least one plant every day, to celebrate spring and get to know my neighbours a bit better. Only in the last few days of this little project did I really find my footing. But I love drawing things as they sprout and as they die.
|
|
|
|
I've spent so much time fighting brambles this year, yet I find them beautiful
|
|
|
|
yet more sprouting brambles
|
|
|
Maybe I am not trying to learn to draw so much as drawing to learn things I can't quite put my finger on.
|
|
As always, thank you for reading!
Oona Leganovic
P.S. All of these drawings and more are available in my Etsy shop as part of the Artists Support Pledge that was started in March as an initiative of solidarity among artists during the pandemic when many exhibitions etc. have been cancelled. That means if I should reach 1000€ in sales with these I will spend at least 200€ on original art from another artist.
|
|
|
|
