To draw is to be Human

To draw is to be Human is a text by Emma Dexter on drawing. Dexter suggests that drawing is something natural; its a part of life. She writes of how drawing is dreaming, we dream in notes and scribbles, we make plans. A point that she makes which I am going to explore is that the essence of drawing is mark making. She mentions marks as a term very loosely, from “Neolithic marks on cave walls to lines of telephone wires…” She goes on to say that these all can be seen as a form of drawing. 

What I wish to question is how far can this be stretched? How far can we push the term ‘drawing’? If drawing is a mark we make then the answer to this question has just become very open; to mark is a very loose term, as the examples that Dexter makes suggest. 

“Indeed, drawing is a part of our interrelation to our physical environment, recording in and on it, the presence of the human.”

This phrase “the presence of the human” stuck with me when reading this text. This sentence not only poses a much more bodily relationship with drawing (a connection physically, perhaps within a space) but also a much more personal and emotional approach. This interpretation of drawing being something that we do, as people, as humans, suggests a primal nature or a natural instinct, this is emphasised by Dexters use of the cave painting example. Dexter suggests that drawing has an elemental character, a part of what it means to be human. 

These carnal impressions of drawing make me what to move away from the traditional, from a mark on paper or canvas, away from a line or a shape, what I have come to know as drawing. I’ve started to consider the possibilities of a more personal approach, one where life itself becomes the page you work on, how we mark our place in the world; our human presence. 

Cornelia Parker, in her text “On Drawing” says that “Drawing seems very elemental and inherently human, it is the most ‘true’ art form in a way". Dexter suggests there is a transparency with drawing, not hiding the mistakes, seeing everything for what it is. I am particularly interested in seeing the power of those things that are not usually seen, the things we do that we wish to hide or get rid of, honesty with who we are and what makes us who we are. 

Dexter mentions the way that as human beings we leave traces, tracks or “shadows to mark our passing”, I have been considering this not only on a global scale (in the way we make our marks on the world) but also on a much more personal level. Those things we do daily that mark ourselves in that space, the way we leave traces that show that we exist. Our essence gets pulled into these places; distinctive characteristics or smells. I want to consider the earthy, the private things that we do, the habitual, the personal. I plan on exploring the spaces of my family, the people that I love, knowing that person; what they are like, who they are and how that is reflected in the marks they make.