On November 6^th, XPACE hosted a panel discussion, in which Derek Liddington, director of XPACE, and artist panelists Sara Kernohan, Dan Rocca and Luke Painter shared their personal experiences on drawing. This interactive panel, appropriately titled “The Act of Drawing”, was centered on the artists participating in the exhibition “Order/Chaos” taking place in XPACE’s mains space. Throughout the panel the exhibition was used to illustrate various aesthetic and technical approaches in contemporary drawing.

Derek, Dan, Luke, Sara (from left to right)

As Derek conducted the conversation sharing anecdotes, opinions and asking questions related to the connotations and denotations of drawing, the panelist, who come from different artistic backgrounds in which drawing is one of the primary tools, offered the public a wide variety of insights on the various aspects embedded in the act drawing. As the conversation progressed, the audience engaged more directly in the conversation by asking questions to the guest speakers, and yet in a more remarkable way, by questioning the role of drawing in relationship to the panelists personal query into theory, history and technique.

This is a list of some of the things that – as a person who doesn’t often engage with drawing-  caught my attention about during the conversation:

• It’s hard to pin down drawing. What does drawing mean? Drawing is often seen as a category or a medium, although to some artists drawing is a method of working. Over twenty different definitions of drawing can be found in dictionaries.
• For all three panelists, drawing is a starting point for new ideas
• Most people who draw, professional or not, tend to be obsessive about it to the point where it builds into a tool; a way for the artist to express ideas, similar to language.
• The panelists identified with the act of taking ideas or personal interpretations from information that they come across or are particularly interested in, and bringing it into their work. To the artists this act parallels drawing.
• Historically, drawing is often associated with illustration, design, sketch, preliminary, thus it has a utilitarian purpose.
• The physicality of drawing allows for emphasis on line, fragility, easier transportation, a large audience being able to experience it; and that the surface of paper is much more “honest” to draw on than say canvas.

XPACE would like to thank all the audience members who were present, for participating in the discussion.