A drawing hangs in the middle

Junuka Deshpande

This exposition is based on a project that explored observation of a crossroad through drawings. The drawings are made from the same place on a sidewalk observing the same square over 30 days. During this process, I tried to explore how a continuous observation of a space and the outcome of the process evokes a certain sense of connectedness and reflexive dialogue with the place and its elements- visible and invisible. This artistic research contemplates on the idea of too early too late through the process of drawing where the drawing emerges in the moment, while can be anticipated early and interpreted in hindsight. My exposition considers the act of drawing as an embodied form of recording as opposed to drawing as an image-making (representational) exercise. This process of drawing becomes an engagement with the existing spatial elements, arrangements, their interconnections and importantly, with the self, that is observing. Along with the external engagement and a dialogue with the space, the moment of drawing is both- the outcome of observation and a connection in the moment of making it. This tension between an immediacy in the moment of drawing and the reflectivity in the process of meaning-making of the drawings creates a parallel relationship between an immediate present and the immediate past. The empty space on the surface before drawing, therefore becomes a potential space to record moments from the space around and to remember the moments that are passing by. The work, in the form of drawings of various sizes aspires to present the engagement with the space. The work also gives me an opportunity to find critical moments in the records of time, memory and space. The drawing as an outcome hence, hangs in the middle between the moment of record and moment of being.

From Space to Place, from whole to the part

I talk about the experience of arrival at a form from what started as a process of observing and naming the content of observation. I would like to expand upon this experience in the context of arriving at a place from space, as opposed to locating a place and its content as aspects of study.

My practice of drawing, took me exactly to areas of explorations where one ended up experiencing a part to whole relationship of self, with the part to whole relationship of space. The content, the place, were arrived at by understanding these relationships through observation.

Space is an abstraction while place is specific, informational, contextual and bound by meanings. The intellectual mind wants to know the meaning of everything whereas the spatial experience offers an opportunity to burrow under the meaning of those words towards experience of the meaning. This requires the movement and participation of every part and layer of the body of an observer. The whole process of seeing in space is like a play of puzzles where one looks at the whole in pieces to put together the whole picture. The understanding of space through the drawing is similar. There is a real space around an individual that comes with material, experience, and time and a sense of flux. The space on the paper is elusive as the nature of it depends on what mark one makes on it. The image appears at the moment of separation between the space and the mark. The fascinating part of my enquiry about observation through drawing is that the entire sense-making takes place because of this elusive space, in a fleeting moment in time. This moment is always under a danger of becoming a representation if done too early or done too late.

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Junuka Deshpande - A drawing hangs in the middle - 2023