What makes a drawing? Drawing is an expansive field of mark making that cannot be comprehensive captured in a simple definition but could be thought of as a mechanism for thinking. In her 2017 lecture for the Menil Collection, titled “Drawing the in Continuous Present”, Amy Sillman describes drawing as “grassroots thinking,” (1) the process of building something as you go. Drawers don’t always begin a new work with an overarching concept, but may allow the image to develop and grow inline with the process. Sillman advocates for the slowness and stillness of drawing asa process of synthesis.
Sillman’s claim for drawing has been particularly influential for Canberra-based artist Chris Burton. Burton utilises the drawing process as a means to situate himself in constructed environments, both familiar and foreign. The tonal transitions and linear mark making of Burton’s abstracted compositions react to density, movement and repetitive architectural features in urban landscapes; a personal and instinctive processing of space and environment. This interrogation of density has been along standing interest for Burton, but in a recent solo show exhibited at ANCA from 4 to 22 March 2020, the artist extends this discussion by introducing a conversation on surface, its implications for tonality and space, and the continuing possibilities of varied drawing surfaces.
Burton’s investigation of surface is foregrounded by the expansive negative spaces of his compositions. Sillman, too, speaks to the importance of empty space in drawing. The empty surfaces, seemingly leftover and untouched by the substance of Burton’s medium are not a mere consequence of the drawing process. These spaces are in fact used formally, their emptiness orchestrated and choreographed.
In some instances, Burton has retained compositional baselines to reference his process as a drawer and to demarcate between positive and negative spaces in the work. The exhibition title implies Burton’s persistence with the process of drawing butalso implicates its surface – pencil on paper, pencil on board. “Pencil On“ is very much about the transition of surface, the space within surfaces and the interactions of surfaces within the gallery space.
Burton’s monochrome works could be at risk of devolving into the expansive neutral space of the white cube gallery, their scale and impact softened by a lack of distinction between the work and the space in which it exists. Burton avoids this concern through his use of depth and texture, both intimately linked to his interest insurface. Burton’s drawings become like three-dimensional objects, with paper mounted on board or Burton drawing directly onto the board’s surface.
In the case of “Passage” (2020), Burton has mounted board onto a backing painted with a slightly different shade of white. In other instances, such as “Subdivision” (2020), sprawling sheets of paper are pinned lightly to the wall, their lower corners hanging freely and gently undulating with the movement of the visitor through the space. This shadow and movement, the subtle tonal variations and depth are a visual cue to look closer, and bring our focus to the surface of the work.
These visual cues are not unlike those unusual details that catch our eye in a new environment, such as the distinctive bus logos that caught Burton’s attention during his travels in South America. The characteristic, aging graphic design of South American bus companies became the subject of his previous body of work, “Trans Salvador”.
In this new body of work, “Interference (green)” and “Interference (blue)” (both 2019) are rare occasions where Burton has introduced coloured lines, rendered in painter’s tape, to emulate this effect.
In “Pencil On”, Burton alludes to his subject without moving too far away from his minimalist tendency. The subject of Burton’s abstraction is always ambiguous, occasionally hinted at in the title of each work but otherwise left to our interpretation. The repetitive, linear motifs suggest at once a pedestrian crossing or a skyscraper, a railway platform or an air-conditioning vent.
Growing up in Canberra and country New South Wales, Burton’s upbringing and subsequent travels to Copenhagen and South America have been immensely influential on his exploration of density. Burton was the recipient of the NSW Young Regional Artist Scholarship in 2016, which enabled him to travel to Denmark. The artist’s experience of living in Copenhagen, a world apart from the low-density, planned city of Canberra, informed Burton’s explorations of density and geometry in abstracted studies of urban environments.
During his travels, Burton attended lectures at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, where the Scandinavian ethos on intersections between design and technology informed his investigations into the drawing process. The Institute describes interaction design as a conduit between the individual and the complex environments in which we live, and as a catalyst for more expansive thinking. This philosophy is closely aligned with Burton’s approach to drawing, informed by Sillman, as an immersive and interactive process, and a means to situate oneself in their environment.
“Pencil” On showcases the evolution of Burton’s interest in the urban environment and how it translates into abstract compositions, but ultimately examines his emerging interest in interrogating the practice of drawing itself. Burton describes his process as a “reflexive investigation into the practice of drawing.” (2) The artist favours the immediacy of drawing, a process that is the outcome of looking and reacting,thinking and feeling, at once analytical and intuitive. In “Pencil On”, Burton makes a case for drawing: what it is, what it can be, and the continuing possibilities of the medium.
1. See ‘Conversation with Amy Sillman: Drawing in the Continuous Present,” The Menil Colllection. Youtubevideo, 1:24:29. Posted February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLOgc466nRk.
2. Chris Burton in conversation with Sophia Halloway, ANCA Gallery, 7 March 2020.
Title image: Chris Burton, Angled (detail). Pencil mounted on paper. 45 x 60cm. Image courtesy the artist.
Article by 2020 CiR Sophia Halloway as part of the Critic in Residence (CiR) program. The CiR is a partnership program between Art Monthly Australasia and ANCA.