Emyr Williams

The white marks are the paper, revealed when the masking fluid is peeled off. In this way the finished work only reveals itself at the last moment - shutting down the and fro of traditional drawing, where the response is conditioned more by the unfolding work.

These drawings were worked on repeatedly to discover an emerging structure, then reworking that to hone it and create its synthetic reality. The flexibility of charcoal is something that I enjoy exploiting in a constant wipe out and draw method. Revisions can be made rapidly and a velvet tone emerges naturally as the drawing takes shape rather than being added as a formal element.

The challenge is always to create visual structures which exist without depicting the form of actual ones and to gain a surety in the line…

These are entirely freehand drawings; no rulers or curved edges are used in their making. It’s just the paper, the charcoal and me.

I draw in sketchbooks almost daily and this includes observations, studies and improvisations; quite often these will include figurative works. I am happy to make both figurative and abstract work in these books and enjoy the freedom to do so, but the figurative works are not used as subject matter to abstract from. In my digital work figurative sketches are used as integral elements alongside sections of abstract drawings. My sketchbook drawings also serve the purpose of “keeping the oven warm’ , plus I am able to get under the skin of the great art that I enjoy, when making any studies - they help fuel my understanding and in turn, compel a greater ambition for my own paintings. Whatever the intent, the key focus is to get a ‘pressure’ into the work: a conflict to resolve, a tension to energise or a problem to solve.

Very, very rarely have I used a specific improvised drawing and worked into a painting. Though many of my improvised works have helped to get me thinking about scale. Moving a line across a smaller sheet of paper is one thing, getting a similar “insouciance” into a painted line on a large canvas is quite another.

Made on A2 sized papers with Indian ink, these works are connected to my larger “fresco” inks and part of a continual investigation into opening up spatial potential for drawing - without relying on gesture or any of the regular tropes of abstract painting.

Digital giclee prints