Drawing The Line

I started making line drawings in December 2019. It was just after the opening of my exhibition “Confess” at Chateau La Coste in France, which was my third show in fifteen months. I wanted to tap into the creative therapy of making art again. I’d been dealing with such a dark subject (the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church) that I wanted to do something with no heavy meanings attached. I wanted to make simple repetitive marks on a page, that took me away from my thoughts. It was like I wanted to brighten my palette with small marks of color. 

As life would have it, I would have plenty of time to make these drawings as The Covid 19 pandemic forced most of the world into lockdown. These drawings were created during that time of isolation and the unknown. They became my daily method of living in the present in uncertain days, when even a trip to the supermarket posed a threat. These lines of color gave me comfort. I was drawing the line between safety and danger, the familiar and the unknown, health and illness. Having to stay in one place gave potency to memories of other places and people and I found myself reflecting on my life in new ways.

Pen Line Drawings