DRAW Thoughts Becoming Lines

About

DRAW - An exhibition that celebrates crossovers between design, moving image, illustration and fine art at the Royal College of Art Drawing is instinctive. Children reach for anything that will make a mark, and make it. Yet as we grow up we seem to lose that instinct. DRAW is an exhibition of what mark-making used to mean for all of us: turning thoughts into lines. It does so in parallel to real time — an idea can be rendered in a flash, or emerge from paper over hours, weeks. DRAW is a celebration of drawing as both process and outcome — from design to graphic novels, film, fine art and illustration, from quick and functional sketches to epic fictitious imaginings. Gallery 1 'Drawing always knows, better than I, what I want to say.' (Josef Herman) lllustration, digital drawing, chance and the infinite come together in a series of collaborations between practitioners and students showing work with similar themes and starting points -from Paul Noble and Joseph Child's extraordinary pencil voyages to Angela Barrett's magical children's illustrations, Gallery 1 showcases crossovers between disciplines and the uses and boundaries of drawing. Work by Quentin Blake, Ann Course, Adam Dant, and others is featured. Gallery 2 'A testing of ideas, a slow motion version of thought...' (William Kentridge) Chris Orr, David Rayson, Sara Fanelli, Sir Peter Blake, Dan Fern and Alison Britton are among the many permanent and visiting staff represented. Here are revealed the sketches and scraps of drawings made to usher in grander pieces of work — the scribble on the back of an envelope to unravel a tricky design problem, the inspired scrawl on a napkin or in a notebook that will later become a chair, a film, a painting. These are functional, intuitive pieces not originally intended for exhibition. The work is fascinating, beautiful and always revealing. DRAW is the umbrella title for a series of student - led informal presentations of work concerning drawing. It is a dialogue between practitioners, ex-students and current students in the Department of Communication Art & Design, which aims to extend the uses of drawing and create crossovers between graphic design, moving image and illustration. Gallery 1 in the DRAW Exhibition presents material from these sessions, Gallery 2 showcases ‘Drawing as thought' — preliminary sketches made by staff from across the RCA in the development of projects. The Royal College of Art is the world's only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, specialising in teaching and research and offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are over 900 masters and doctoral students and more than a hundred professionals interacting with them — including scholars, leading art and design practitioners, along with specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors.