By NICOLE VALICEK
ARTISTS are invited to attend a five-day intensive workshop that will challenge them to experience drawing like never before.
The Art Room presents The Drawing Theatre – a challenging and stimulating drawing intensive taught by five well-respected contemporary artists over five consecutive days at The Substation in Newport.
The Art Room is an art class and workshop space located at the Cotton Mills, Footscray and run by Yarraville artist and Drawing Theatre creator Erika Gofton.
Ms Gofton attended a residency in New York at the start of the year where she undertook a 10-day drawing marathon at the New York Studio School.
She researched how this was run with the intention of holding a similar workshop for local artists.
“It is an opportunity for artists and art students to step into the unknown, to try new approaches and to take a risk in their practice,” she said.
She said it is not a ‘learn to draw’ class as such and therefore it is expected that participants will have a level confidence in their own practice.
“It’s an opportunity to re-engage with not just drawing, more than anything to be challenged.”
The intensive workshop will consider the relationship between drawing and performance both as observer and participant.
Ms Gofton said each teacher/artist will design their own program in response to this brief, creating a very unique and engaging drawing experience every day, which will be influenced by their approach to their own work.
“It is not about coming away with a perfect finished drawing to hang on the wall but a new set of experiences and processes to inform their own work in the future,” she said.
The event will be held at The Substation from 9-13 December. Spaces are still available. For more information visit http://www.the-art-room.com.au.
