Partnership Exhibition: Sample-Studios and MTU Drawbridge
Drawing Connections is an exhibition which celebrates collaboration between artists, artworks and institutions. Sample-Studios invited MTU Drawbridge to assist in devising this project with the invaluable input of the Crawford Art Gallery and their wonderful drawing collection, which was put at the disposal of artists whose work widely encompasses drawing practice.
The artists invited to participate were drawn from the pool of graduates of the last ten years who undertook the MTU MA Art & Process course. Responding artists were given access to the Crawford Art Gallery drawing collection on a viewing day in May 2022, as part of National Drawing Day. After spending time with, and exploring their selected piece, the artists were asked to create their own response and research into the drawing in the form of a new work.
The resulting exhibition includes projects that explore the expanded field of drawing practice in its broadest terms, such as the embodied act of performance, site specific responses to the building of the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion and surrounding park, photo etchings, laser engraving, animation, mark making, sound installation and braille as methods of capturing and investigating the diverse and rich heritage of the Crawford drawings.
The significant viewing day provided a stimulus for subsequent wide ranging research into historical works and an opportunity to connect with living artists. On the day itself, connections were made through quiet note taking and sketching from the drawings brought into the library for viewing, but the relationships being formed were also social; there was a great collective buzz between artists, the curators, archivist, and researchers present. Some artists even changed the focus of their project in reaction to the sight of the actual works in the room, and to the conversations between artists, which in themselves have generated one of the resulting works.
Drawbridge has documented the process of establishing this show, from initial proposals, the viewing day, studio visits and the final installation, which has been led by Sample Studios.
Drawbridge is a drawing research hub based at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and came about to facilitate the exploration of ideas around contemporary drawing practice with a shared interest in the experiential and phenomenological nature of drawing, and evident enthusiasm surrounding drawing practice.
The exhibition will feature the work of the following artists:
