‘Tone’ was held at Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town in April/May 2011
Most of us have a long and close relationship with music. From elements which are often non-narrative, mostly repetitive and largely abstract, we extract or assemble meaningful experience, repeatedly. And yet, when it comes to visual art, we rely more readily on elements like representation, symbolism and narrative. I address this here in a series of 26 pencil drawings (variously titled Tone, Pitch and Field), a linocut and two sculptures. Using a reduced palette and only line and its sculptural equivalent, edge, I explore visual correspondents for music and sound, and their constituent parts.
In 2010 I was lucky enough to be awarded the Ampersand Fellowship and spent some time in New York. I was able to visit Dia: Beacon, where their large collection of Sol LeWitt wall drawings impressed me greatly. These were instrumental in my decision to pick up a pencil, as were my exposure, as a student, to friend and mentor Walter Oltmann’s basket drawings.
Photos by Mario Todeschini.
Tone, 2011, polypropylene, hardware
Timbre, 2011, polypropylene, hardware
These pieces were made from die-cut semi-translucent polypropylene held together by hardware and spacers, exploring the range of tones I was able to achieve by the superimposition of many layers, and how this varied with the changing profiles of the form..
Field 1, 2011, pencil on paper
The Field series was the simplest of the the drawing series, made simply with carefully spaced and ruled lines, along the length of which I varied pressure on my pencil. This results in a line of changing tone.
Field 2, 2011, pencil on paper
Field 3, 2011, pencil on paper
Field 4, 2011, pencil on paper
Pitch 1, 2011, pencil on paper
The Pitch series was made with a lasercut acrylic tool I designed . For some years I’d been using digital tools and processes in my work. Often this is just a starting point,as it is here, and the results are very much the result of hand work. Again, each line was made with varying pressure on the pencil.
Pitch 2, 2011, pencil on paper
Pitch 3, 2011, pencil on paper
Pitch 4, 2011, pencil on paper
Pitch 5, 2011, pencil on paper
Pitch 6, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 1, 2011, pencil on paper
This series was too made with a lasercut acrylic tool which I shifted around the paper in a predetermined fashion but which gave rise to unpredictable results.
Tone 2, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 3, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 4, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 5, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 6, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 7, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 8, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 9, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 10, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 11, 2011, pencil on paper
Tone 12, 2011, pencil on paper
Solid, 2010, linout, 110 x 150cm
This large linocut was made prior to the drawings above, and was perhaps my first exploration of tone. The overlap between the two hatched near-circular forms is hatched with a third line, rendering the tone a little darker than it would be with just two overlapping tones. I would go on to re-work this print a few times, notably here in 2015. I worked with Artist Proof Studio, who had once previously printed a work of mine, on this piece.
Paul Edmunds 