Tracing Process

2017

Watercolour on 200gsm Cartridge

400 x 150 cm

Tracing Process was a six week residency at Yorkshire Artspace in Sheffield as part of their Making Ways programme and was an exploration into the variety of people and their marks. It allowed the public the opportunity to be present during the creation of an artwork as well as being able to contribute their own marks to the finished piece.

My own method of producing marks is controlled and ordered, neat and regular, and could be described as a visual language or self expression. I wanted to explore how this control might alter if others, with an intuitively different way of working, were invited to make the same mark, with the same brush on the same paper. And what would it be like to relinquish this control and allow other people into my work?

During the six weeks, over 200 people of all ages took part, adding their own versions of my brushmarks to the work, and giving a whole spectrum of different voices and ‘handwritings’ to the overall piece. By keeping my own marks regular and level between each addition, and by weaving straight lines in amongst the irregularities, all the individual marks were eventually tied together visually to become part of the whole.