Workshop EXPERIMENTAL DRAWING by Emily Hunt

“DAY 1: String Theory: Thread as a drawing tool
In this course we will experiment with drawing with string. The concept of a spiral or a continuous thread will be the starting point for a series of artistic methods. The aim is to begin thinking about drawing in three-dimensional space. A short lecture at the beginning of the course will bring together three interconnected concepts: 17th century calligraphy, string art/cat’s cradles and knot theory.

The work of master scrollwork and calligrapher Baudoin van Horicke will be discussed in relation with the contemporary artists whose practices use the continuous scroll or calligraphic ornament as a visual language. A warm-up exercise will entail not lifting the pencil while making a portrait. The second exercise will introduce the Spirograph-like esoteric work of Emma Kunz and Louise Despont in relation to mathematical shapes containing personality and meaning. We will construct a free-form string work that uses thread as a drawing tool. The third exercise allows a drawing of a knot to “harden” using plaster, and therefore become a sculpture.

DAY 2: The Silhouette: The outline as experimental drawing
A silhouette is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. We will be focusing on this outline and void, using drawing, painting on PVC and collage to experiment with shape and form. The course will open with a short lecture on the history of silhouettes, looking at the work of Auguste Edouart and Lotte Reiniger, ending with contemporary examples by Kara Walker, Rebecca Shore, William Kentridge and Paul Morrison.

To begin the class there will be a warm-up drawing experiment that uses the objects around us as a source of inspiration. The emphasis being on the outline of objects as the source for drawing. In the second part of the course we will be talking about the free associations that occur when we look at outlines of objects. Employing methods similar to ones used by John Stezaker, Rene Magritte and Tony Garifalakis but through collage techniques, the exercise will examine unpredictable meanings that arise from the effects of blacking out, cut-out silhouettes and empty space. The third exercise will use an unusual material substrate, plastic PVC which mimics glass, to create a profile silhouette portrait.” (Text by courtesy of Emily Hunt)

Emily Hunt (b. 1981) lives and works in Berlin since 2017. Hunt has been running Big Ego Books since 2015. She was the co-Dictator of DUKE Magazine, an artist magazine focusing on Australian artists and thrift culture between 2005-2009. She has shown extensively in Australia since 2012, including at the Museum for Contemporary Art Sydney, First Draft, Casula Powerhouse, UTS Gallery, Artspace, Bundanon Trust, UQ Art Museum, KNULP and The Commercial gallery.Her work is held in collections that include The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art (CCWA), Artbank, and Manly Art Gallery. She was awarded Marten Bequest Scholarship for Painting (2015), and Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2017), with two grants from Australia Council for the Arts (2014 & 2019). Her work has recently been shown at the Arp Museum Remagen, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Zitadelle Spandau (ZAK) and Sim Smith Gallery, London. In 2020 Hunt was selected as a participant in the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Projekt. In 2021, Hunt’s first solo exhibition in Berlin opened at Galerie Wedding.

More information on the Emily Hunt Website.