Interesting2008

Part of my course for a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design requires the writing of an essay so Saint Martins can actually claim to be a proper University, not just a crazy place with a bunch of creative people in it doing fun stuff. I don't mind academic writing, though doing it in my second language is at times proving more difficult than I expected. I just wanted to make sure I write about something I'm passionate about and really do feel interested in so Drawing was the obvious choice. My essay will be about Scribbling and how it made its way into the Art world. I gave a presentation about this at a conference called Interesting which is organised by Russel Davies.

Below are the slides I showed and some of the stuff I talked about.

Using this drawing of David Shrigley seemed like a good way of starting my presentation.

These are some of my own drawings.

Now follows a conversation two people had in the 'letters' section of a Guardian weekend magazine:

And this is the kind of stuff Paul Harrison is probably talking about. Totally incomprehensible but–to me–absolutely brilliant:

Next, I showed a drawing about drawing, trying to explain where I think Scribbles fit into the wider picture.

Now follows my favourite illustrator: Paul Davis. Below is a drawing which he did for a surf magazine by David Carson, who in turn thought it was too pessimistic and didn't publish it.

These are the covers and some spreads of books about what the English think of Americans and vice versa.

Referring to Rick Poynor's article in Eye magazine a few years ago about the genius of Paul Davis I put together some of the characteristics I thought most Scribble Artist's had in common:

Last but not least the Romanian Dan Perjovschi, who stunned art lovers with a huge and fantastic exhibition in the MoMa last year. Below are some of the drawings you can find in a leaflet from the exhibition.

I concluded my presentation with an example of what I think will not help getting more people drawing: A publication from the Guardian about how to doodle. I just think the very sense of Doodling or Scribbling is that it happens spontaneously and not on a provided sheet of paper in a Doodle book.

P.S.: Another artist to mention in relation to Scribble Art is the German Markus Vater

whose work I am personally not 100% fond of. I think it lacks some of the cleverness of someone like David Shrigley, esp. in its typographic commentary on the drawings, and, to me, often risks being a touch banal.