As an artist I am primarily engaged in making drawings which test the limits of visibility and material existence.  My practice reflects a fascination with the unseen, untouchable and unspoken, and how these qualities might be rendered tangible through the act of drawing.   The project offers an opportunity to explore the far and distant reaches of human sensing as experienced through cosmology.  Having an undergraduate degree in joint honours with History and Philosophy of Science  I was particularly keen to work in dialogue with both scientists and social scientists on this project.

 

Why drawing?

Drawings at large, in their creation, ultimately address states of being and not being and are closely associated with the liminal. Drawing can visualise and manipulate abstract thoughts and reveal the otherwise unseen. Since the renaissance drawing has been used as a tool for making tangible the ungraspable and unfathomable. In drawing, the drawer is bringing something into being, giving presence to an idea, making visible the invisible, the thought, the idea, and inscribing it into the world.

 

Yet while the imperceptible is one of the aesthetic, psychological and poetic qualities strongly associated with the history and practice of drawing, critical appreciation of its qualities in drawing remain predominantly introspective. Conversely, this project situates the imperceptibility encountered though drawing in dialogue with understanding in speculative social science and theoretical cosmology. In doing so it refines the critical language and expands the range of graphic possibilities for articulating qualities of the imperceptible to an audience within and without a fine art research community.

 

 Drawing is presented here as a mimetic and embodied practice, analogous to activities in daily life, and sensitive to existential and sensory experience.  AsI've written elsewhere, drawing’s capacity for mimesis enables it to synthetize approaches from other disciplines to develop new graphic languages (Casey 2012). Since one of the qualities of drawing is its ability to remain open and mutable able to encompass multiple, even conflicting meanings, it is a useful device to approach the complex, conflicting ideas of cosmology and enter dialogue with speculative theory. As such, drawing will be further established as a useful tool for critical interdisciplinary exchange.