Rob Le Grice

8 pieces of driftwood from a beach in Kota Kinabalu. I watched them being abandoned one-by-one by the falling tide. Dried and laid-out in my studio they became the catalyst for a new project. In teaching we talk about ‘the process not the product’ and I re-discovered what this means while drawing them. I wanted my drawing process to portray the ebb and flow of the tide, the ‘drifting’ experience and the slow erosion of the wood pieces.

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I wanted the materials to be as unpredictable as the subject matter. Early photographic works were made erasing ink from acetate sheets with strong thinners. Sketchbook studies were executed with rapid, gestural strokes of ink and torn paper. In later works I watched bleach, white emulsion and ink fighting to retain the forms that they described. I felt the outcome should be vast, rich in layers but finally vacant.

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