THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE

THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 51

Tara Geer

I believe drawing is about seeing. The

more I look around me, as I am drawing,

the more the world opens up as if under

an old magnifying lens—the spoon in the

cereal bowl and the floating bits of cereal

lose their distinction—there is fuzziness,

glassiness, still gray, belts of pale light.

The world is strange and beautiful and

full of awe. For me, drawing is about piec-

ing apart all the named, known objects

around me; teasing them into a pure

meaningless visual field. Not window,

table, wall, hand, but fat oily lines, shiver-

ing, hairline cracks, darkness...

As soon as I begin to recognize what is

on my drawing, as soon as it raises up a

known world, I change tactics. but I always

draw from life, because it is all that stuff

out there and the looking at it that inter-

ests me. I am not much interested in the

images in my mind, nor in the tactics of

drawing themselves except as a means

to an end. I like looking out at the world

and seeing things I cannot name—things

released and glorious.

Top: Cloud Nest

middle: Humpbacked

bottom: star Holder

Tara Geer

From the exhibition: