Drawing as Intimation (or Infatuations with Lines, Contours and Shades)

Abstract

This article focuses on drawing as gesture and bodily intervention – in specific moments where the process of drawing closer, drawing out, or drawing in has significance. While specific attention is paid to drawing as scopic-somatic practice (that is, as a visual tool for illustrating, marking and mapping out, plotting and delineating), this article also nurtures other etymological roots, such as drawing as that which impels someone or something to pull (move, stir, sweep), withdraw (drain, transfer, absorb, siphon, bleed) and attract (mesmerise, invite, desire). At the hand of select visual artists, including Katherine Bull, Tim Knowles, Yayoi Kusama, Hentie van der Merwe and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, this essay explores how closeness between different bodies (the self and the other, the human and non-human) and different substrates (be it parchment, pigment or skin) is facilitated through drawing. Particular attention is paid to drawings that dwell at the intersection of affection, sexuality and disease, while ideas surrounding unlicensed looking and unreciprocated intimacy are also explored.