Background - Context
Making
a Diary Drawing according to
a Rectilinear Personality:
(please try)
- get piece of paper & a pencil
- sit down at the table
- pick up pencil and put paper in front of you
- concentrate on the empty page in front of you
- think about your life today
- what did you see, hear, feel, say
- draw
- be honest
- don’t try to impress anyone
- don’t use any text
- when finished add date and signature
Since 1995
I have made hundreds of ‘diary drawings’.
These autobiographical, partly automatic drawings are based on real moments,
my feelings or observations of other people and make up the ‘Rectilinear
Personality’ series.
The title ‘Rectilinear personality’ is taken from one of the
first diary drawings I did, and describes both the technique used (red
linear drawings) and the strictness of the ritual involved. The process
shown in this exhibition is one of ‘becoming better at visualising
‘small truths’ about humanity’ through drawing.
Dutch author and diarist Hans Warren says in ‘The Diary as Art form’:
'The more dedicated the writer is the more fascinating a diary becomes.
The more an author dares to show his inner life, the more this unique
report of a single life will turn into a global commentary. The more careful
one is in the analysing of one’s own motives, the more the highly
personal proofs to coincide with the general.’
I believe
the same to be true for visual diaries. When
I started the diary drawings I never intended them to become public, they
were very personal. Through drawing I discovered things about myself,
but also about drawing – about art – and I discovered ways
of drawing that I could use in the rest of my work. Through other people’s
responses to the drawings I realised I was touching on something that
surpassed my own feelings, surpassed my own life.
“A diary is a kind of looking glass.
At first it reflects the diarist.
But it ends by revealing the reader”
– Stefan Kanfer
