Allies and Alibies

Concerning Re-(Re)Reading and the Pentimentopography of Thought

Abstract

Drawing is quite unlike the image; it is not a finished thing, nor a singular moment, but something that develops and grows over time. It has a life cycle, it is a palimpsestuous record of the process of turning tacit knowledge and intuition into explicit form. Neither whole nor complete, the drawing process offers the creator an opportunity for reflection and criticality, rather than endless speculative cogitation. It is curious to observe that once ‘completed’ secondary and subsequent re-viewings and (re)readings of the work can challenge the original intention(s) and meaning(s) of the drawing. Often these serendipitous insights occur as a consequence of the perspectival shift from the position of Draw-or (author/drawer’s) to Read-or (reader/author –referencing the role of the reader in the construction of meaning) or are the result of unintended, metaleptic exchanges between layers of meaning or compositional elements within the drawing, in essence a process of palingenesis, that provokes a renewed criticality. 

In this manner, the drawing (verb/gerund) gains some independence from the hand of the drawer, and whilst not autonomous the drawing becomes a critical ally rather than a subjective, subservient creation. This in turn empowers the Draw-or, offering the opportunity for the development of an architectural logic based on a critical creative process of continuous, reflexive, (re)reading, of various inputs and influences, rather than a purely subjective set of sensibilities.

Born from a growing frustration with the (self-)imposed limitations of conventional architectural design practices, my own The (He)rose Garden, a subset of works within my emerging Magnum Opus Filigreed Gods – Diaphanous Bodies and Sacred Vessels, explores the mutability of meaning through a re-associative practice of pentimento as a form of artistic agent provocateur that prompts a deliberate dislocation of the trained architectural self. 

Read the full article online at: https://drawingon.org/Issue-04-05-Allies-and-Allibies