October 7 – November 4 2024
Postcards: Reflections, Spectrums and Gradients are a set of postcard drawings and other small-sized work on paper. They were begun during the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns as never-to-be-sent postcards using off-cuts of paper trimmed to standard postcard dimensions. They are part of a larger body of work called Ruler Drawings.
The premise for Ruler Drawings is that each drawing follows an organisational system in which tonal and colour combinations from the predetermined order of pencils or pens within a tonal range or sequence are presented equally through hand-drawn lines using a straightedge. The drawings use modular structures, basic numbering permutations, and symmetrical proportions configured so that each part replicates and reflects the whole
Making each drawing involves stillness and composure, using ordering systems and repetitive actions that curtail decision-making during the process. This method enables me to stay focused and fully present with the activity. It cultivates a cognitively detached position and operational distance between my subjectivity and the resulting drawing through a predetermined system, mindful counting and methodical mark-making.
I reflect on Ruler Drawings and related Postcard Drawings in my chapter Mind Like Water: Drawing the Still Point, which is in the forthcoming Bloomsbury publication Drawing in Health and Wellbeing: Marks, Signs and Traces, edited by Philippa Lyon and Curie Scott.
Duncan Bullen – Brighton, UK – October 2024
Duncan Bullen is an artist with a primary interest in drawing. He studied at Great Yarmouth College of Art & Design and then Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic in the mid-1980s before completing his MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 1991. He then received a Rome Scholarship, spending 1991-‘92 at the British School at Rome.
He recently retired from the University of Brighton (UoB), where he was Associate Dean: Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Art and Media. Previous to this, he was Deputy Head of School, Subject Leader for Fine Art, and Course Leader for Fine Art: Printmaking. He was the founding Director of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.