August 25 – 26, 2021, 10 am – 12:30 pm

Many thanks to the artist Emily Hunt for her workshop introducing our participants to Experimental Drawing – The Horror Vacui Pattern & Asemic Writing and Automatic Ornaments during the basic course within the Studio Program at BAI |Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.

DAY 1: The Horror Vacui Pattern
The course will provide a short introduction to the history and contemporary use of horror vacui in drawing, printmaking and collage. Horror vacui leads to the act of completely filling a space or drawing with meticulous detail. Within this drawing concept, the course will investigate common patterns or ornaments that hold historical meaning as well as exploring personally significant motifs that are constructed through automatic practices. A series of exercises will focus on the outline as a receptacle for pattern, the exchange of ornamental language and the construction of a monogram. The technical aspect of the course will provide experience of sketching a drawing and then refining the detail through overlaying black ink with a calligraphic nib for fine detail.

DAY 2: Asemic Writing and Automatic Ornaments
In this course will be using the free associations that were invoked when “filling the void” to further experiment with constructed languages. Asemic writing is the action by which the artist invents a personal language which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. The course will begin with a brief introduction to the history of artists using ornamental language and surrealist automatic writing. The series of exercises will be set to explore the potential for automatic drawing techniques, asemic alphabets and conjunctions of images and descriptions that are open to interpretation. The technical aspects will utilise skills that have been practiced with the calligraphic nib in ink drawing.” (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.