Sometimes I deliberately create a
dissonance.
I choose a colour that seems out of place,
a shape that stands out, a combination that
seems to undermine the whole drawing.
I know that something isn’t quite right.
My eye picks it up immediately.
Yet, instead of going back, I
keep what’s jarring and carry on from
there.
Curiosity guides me more than
mastery.
I could correct it straight away.
I prefer to wait.
Waiting prevents me from confusing my
initial reaction with what the drawing might
become. I let the imperfection take effect before
deciding what to do next.
Colours shift, shapes
change their roles.
A colour that is too dominant alters the intensity
of those around it. A poorly placed
shape transforms the distances. An
unexpected convergence reveals a
void that I hadn’t seen.
The ‘incorrect’ spreads through the drawing. It
shifts relationships I thought were fixed and
transforms parts of the page that
I haven’t even touched.
What seemed impossible sometimes opens up a path I would never have imagined.
I choose the incorrect. I do not choose what it produces.
From that moment on, I find myself faced with a situation that I have brought about without having
conceived. I must observe what has shifted
and respond to what is now there.
My focus shifts. It turns to the
consequences. I watch as one colour
alters another, as one shape changes the
balance of a neighbouring shape, a void becoming
suddenly necessary.
Each decision arises from the previous one without
my knowing in advance the direction
they will take together. I can add,
repeat, bring elements closer together, or space them out. I can also
wait a little longer.
Little by little, what I had introduced as
incorrect becomes part of the composition of the
drawing. I have not corrected the disruption. I have
worked with its effects.
This is where the notion of correctness shifts.
A decision may remain incorrect
when viewed in isolation, yet become
necessary within the whole that it has
helped to bring into being. Accuracy no longer
lies in each choice made
separately. It emerges in the relationships
that are built between them.
I do not choose the incorrect simply to learn how to
rectify it. I choose it to create a
situation that I do not yet know how to view.
The drawing begins in this gap: between what
I have deliberately introduced and what
that decision then compels me to see.
