‘All About Drawing’ is a new exhibition at The Gallery at Bank Quay House in Warrington brought to the public by Wigan artist collective ‘Cross Street Arts’.

Offering up an interesting collaborative partnership between all the artists who each present different ways in which drawing can be approached and applied. From ink, transfer, charcoal, stitch, print, pen, pencil and screenprint, there’s a real mix of styles and techniques.

There are careful, modified working drawings all the way to quick, fluid sketches emphatically drawn in haste. Narratives and story lines pop up everywhere, no matter how abstract it has substance behind it. Even drawings turned into sculptural entities make their mark alongside fun, quirky drawings put on everyday office objects such as neon post-it notes.

Ranging from landscape scenes and journeys to the figurative and abstract. Incorporating soft lines to hard edges, anything goes in this exhibition including a snaking tyre arrangement and the assembly of found objects to form a new pictorial blueprint. The beauty of drawing is in its infinite uses and undefinable qualities as a versatile creative medium. And the beauty of this exhibition is in its fun, fresh approach to the subject making it accessible to everyone.

‘All About Drawing’ continues into The Pyramid Arts centre with ‘Testing Space’. Drawing becomes physical when large installation pieces push the boundaries of size, spectrum and diversity. Drawing with materials other than with the hand, the body interacts and thus creates sculptural effects using fabric, paint, hair, video and metal. Paint mimics oil slicks, vertical river rainbows to a raised metal-fused-fabric ‘nest’ platform. Moving drawing from its traditional 2D roots to a new and reinvigorated 3D sculptural perspective.

After the photographs of the two combined exhibitions I have noted a few invaluable quotes about drawing and its benefit to the work of the Cross Street artists…

“As a fibre artist, I often use yarn rather than pen and pencil, as a means of drawing with a continuous line to express an idea. This usually also makes use of colour and takes the idea of drawing a stage further.” Joyce Coulton

“Drawing for me is simply an exploration…It is, for example, the found marks, textures or energy rather than the structure of the subject that is often carried forward and appears in my abstract painting.” Stewart Kelly

“Drawing is a way for me to create my own world. It’s about creating a narrative.” Jane Fairhurst

“I have always kept a small sketchbook and pen in my bag where I draw objects which may then develop into stitch and thread drawings.” Maria Walker

“It is a way of freeing up my practice, enabling me to explore themes, connections and traces of memory in a more immediate way. It involves improvisation and experiment.” Paula Fenwick Lucas

“Keeping a sketchbook is vital to the development of my work.I see sketchbooks as an extension to myself.” Debra Budenberg

“For me, drawing presents the most direct method of representation. It is a way of articulating experience, of being in the moment, of bringing order to random thoughts and the act of looking.” Martyn Lucas

“In 2013 my New Years Resolution was to create one drawing per day, I had no limitations to subject matter or media… I was also keen to explore non-traditional methods such as drawings with drills, bubbles, wire and thread.” Kat Button

“To me drawing is a necessity: a physical outlet and lines are gestures, which can say so much.” Andrea Lowe

‘All About Drawing & ‘Testing Space’
The Gallery at Bank Quay House & The Pyramid arts centre
Warrington
On now until Sat 4th July

Cross Street Arts
Standish, North Wigan
www.facebook.com/crossstreetarts