Jonathan Owens has developed a drawing process that only uses a rubber. He draws onto photographs by removing the ink they have been printed with. He draws in reverse by removing layers of tone to specific degrees, making black by not rubbing out at all and white by rubbing all the ink off. He uses this process to ‘remove’ figures from drawings and replace them with his own idea of what might have been behind them. Fragments of the figures remain where they weren’t in synch with his intentions (e.g. a white blouse where he wanted black). The effect is quite impressive when you stand in a room facing these drawings. Owens’ mastery of the process, the intricacy, and the time it has all clearly taken, imbue the drawings with power. (EDM handbook)
http://www.inglebygallery.com/artists/jonathan-owen/
In both his “Eraser Drawings” and his sculptural works, British artist, Johathan Owens uses subtractive methods of art-making through which redefines the object of his drawing. He is described as ‘a master of tools of destruction’ and as ‘attacking cultural history, deconstructing and removing the elements that give them their objecthood and replacing them with alien forms that demand the viewer’s reconsideration’ (https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-jonathan-owens-defaced-photos-and-sculptures-are).
Owens’ “Eraser Drawings” could perhaps be achieved using a software programme such as Photoshop, but they are done by hand using an eraser to remove ink from black-and-white photos found in books. He slowly removes parts of the image to leave ghostly traces. To date, he has created two series in this vein: one of public statues and another of Hollywood film stars on set; in both, the subjects are almost absent in the final works.
In his sculptures, Owens’ found objects are once again reworked to build surprising new forms. Traditional marble busts have their insides removed and are partially carved into intricate, abstract shapes that both deconstruct and emphasise their original form. The works are recognisable as figures, but have been carved out so that the body becomes detached from itself. According the artsy.net above, this emphasises its materiality. For example, in David (2013), a figure’s head has been detached like a chain link and rests on the sculpture’s shoulder, creating an effect that is surreal and also romantic.
By removing parts of the original, Owens directs our eye to the negative space as we try to decipher the original image (called the “ur-image” in writing about traditional palimpsestic forms). Artsy.net suggest that the missing pieces makes it impossible to fully know this original image and so we are forced to settle into a state of unknowing. I don’t quite agree with this – I think we can pretty much see the original in the images below, or perhaps we are given enough information to reconstruct it?Owens is one of many contemporary artists who have examined the function of additive erasure, including Idris Khan, Jeremy Millar, or even Michel Gondry, but his works are more focused on the final image or sculpture than on the process. Defacing is often used as an act of protest, but by Owens it is utilized as a means to an end, in which the final object is a work of complex beauty. I wonder how Owens chooses the images to deconstruct and whether their choice has specific meaning for him? For example, the statue below is clearly of a soldier on horseback – therefore something to do with war. The female image doesn’t seem to be in any specific context – but she could be fleeing?
above. two partly erased book pages.
above. Two pages that have been cut and burned
Above .2 book pages woven together.
2 marble sculptures that have been deconstructed/recarved.
I like this process as a way of exploring absence and had a brief go at erasing parts of photographs in exercise 3.4 of this course. It is in fact not at all difficult to erase part of a photograph. The artistic decision relates to which part of the image to leave and what to replace the removed image with. In the two photographs above Owens has largely replaced the statue images with trees. I think that the clever part of this work is leaving exactly enough image for the viewer to discern the trace of the former photograph. The erasure leaves interesting questions in the mind of the beholder: who was this? what were they doing? why have they disappeared? – questions that might not be asked if the image were totally clear. The erasure makes the image more mysterious and therefore more interesting – attention is fixed more intently. Erasing part of an image clearly offers potential for exploring both absence/emphemarily and what endures – and is therefore something for me to examine in more detail, including the work of the three artists mentioned above.
Exploring Drawing Media 