I do not fill the page with colour. I simply
set out the conditions for their growth.
My drawings sometimes resemble a vegetable garden.
I sow colours, shapes and curves into them, just as others sow seeds.
What I place there immediately encounters what
was already there. One shape displaces another. A
colour transforms its neighbour. The space left
between two elements becomes as active as the
elements themselves. The page organises itself through
successive relationships.
Circles, matrices, eggs,
ovules.
My drawings often begin with
shapes that already hold the promise of life.
I’m not really sure whether I’m drawing a
cell, a flower, an insect, a bud or a
planet.
These categories blend together in the drawing. The
vegetal merges with the animal, the cellular touches on the
cosmic, the floral extends into the organic.
A form begins in one realm and continues
its growth in another.
Lines become stems, dots
resemble seeds, round shapes
await germination, then
passages, bridges, paths and
shortcuts appear.
The eye wanders as one traverses
a landscape.
Turtles turn pink, pumpkins
choose blue, jellyfish lose their
stings and become almost tender.
Everything seems strange, and yet everything finds
its place.
I apply one colour, then a second.
The first one changes.
The pink is no longer the same when a shade of purple
draws near. A yellow displaces the presence
of blue. A dark colour can reveal
a shade that was previously almost absent.
When I apply a dark purple over a lighter purple,
lighter shade of purple, I am not merely seeking a
contrast; I am helping a colour to mature.
I give it greater depth, greater
density, greater presence.
Colour has an effect beyond the spot where I apply it.
It alters its surroundings and, in return, receives the influence of other colours.
Colours do not simply add up. They
transform one another.
This is what makes them similar to seeds.
A seed does not grow independently of
its surroundings. Its development depends on the space it has,
the presence of its neighbours, the light
it receives, and what grows before it and
around it.
My colours obey this interdependence.
I decide to apply a touch of pink. I do not
entirely decide what that pink will do to the drawing.
Some grow immediately.
Others wait a long time before revealing
their necessity.
A colour may remain almost silent
for much of the work. Then a
shape appears at the other end of the sheet and
something connects them. The first has not
changed materially. It is the totality of its
relationships that has changed.
I no longer look merely at what I have drawn.
I look between what I have drawn.
A distance becomes too short. An area
lacks breathing space. A repetition begins to saturate
the space. A colour proliferates and must be
contained. Another almost disappears and
demands to return. A shape I like
cannot tolerate anything beside it.
The void, too, forms part of the ecosystem.
As the sheet becomes denser, my choices
become fewer and more precise.
Each intervention closes off certain possibilities
and opens up others. The shape I add
transforms the available space. The colour I
apply alters the colours I might still
introduce.
The drawing gradually produces its own
conditions for continuation.
I remain the one holding the pen. Yet I no longer
work in front of an empty surface. I
work within a situation constructed by
my previous gestures.
Every gesture must now take into account what
already exists.
Each colour is a seed rather than a mere
pigment.
Each coloured dot is a seed
placed with patience.
Their importance does not depend on their
size. A tiny dot can shift
the balance of an entire sheet. A large, colour-filled area may remain unobtrusive. What matters is not so much the quantity of colour as the
relationship it creates.
I return to certain areas without knowing immediately whether they require more or whether they are already complete.
For cultivating is not the same as filling.
An extra splash of colour can reinforce a
balance or destroy it. A repetition can
create a rhythm and then become overpowering.
The gesture that was necessary just moments before
may become the one I must resist.
The development of the drawing also involves pausing.
I must recognise the moment when continuing to
sow would prevent what is already there from existing.
The vegetable patch then takes on a different meaning. It no longer
simply refers to the proliferation of
—plant, animal or cellular—that runs through
my drawings. It signifies a whole system of interdependencies.
Nothing grows there on its own.
Each colour transforms the conditions of existence for the others.
I plant a seed of colour.
It transforms the leaf.
The leaf transforms my next stroke.
And so the drawing continues to grow, between what
I place within it and what it teaches me not to add any more.
