Annotations was a series of artist commissions for Drawing Room’s Outset Study. Including 6 artists over a 3-year period, each artist undertook a period of supported residency, researching the library collection to create a work for Outset Study - using the wall, the space, or intervening within the library collection itself.
The Annotations 5 commission, by London-based artist Devlin Shea, explored her experience of spending time with books in Outset Study. The artist has selected materials that imbue the work with the sensation of handling books and leafing through them: ‘I wanted the materials to feel tactile, similar to picking up a book and the level of intimacy that can unfold’. The scale and materials employed in Getting Closer were also influenced by the formative experience of cinema for the artist. The drawing was made on acetate which floats in the space. Light reflected off this plastic screen and visible through the transparent veil were a range of smaller scale works of disembodied heads, made with ink on paper. The multi-layered quality of the installation reflected the artist’s interest in the complexity of human relationships.
Oversized figures filled Shea’s large drawings and paintings and spilled out of the edges. These theatrically scaled works, and smaller drawings in black and coloured ink on paper, described physical sensations and emotions, for example crying, holding hands and embracing.
ON VIEW: 22nd November 2018 – 26th March 2019
