Output details

'In Between’ (Pen on Paper)

Brief Description

The drawing ‘In Between’ was selected for the 4th International Annual Paper Art Exhibition at the Art Alley Gallery, Sofia, organised by the Amateras Foundation and supported financially by the Culture Programme of Sofia Municipality and eight further organisations including the British Council. Other artists came from Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia.

Research Rationale

‘In Between’ was informed by on-going research into figure and ground relationships within non-figurative painting, in particular by works by Ellsworth Kelly [e.g. Black Curve I (White Curve) 1973] in which a figure/ground relationship was set up within the frame of the painting so as to suggest that either the figure or ground element continued beyond the boundary or edge of the work. Scull wanted to develop this idea so that the actual physical work became purely figure and the area beyond the physical work - the wall immediately adjoining it - served as its relational ground. This would result in a figure/ground relationship within and outside of the physical work itself. The idea was initiated in a series of drawings including this one. This drawing was fully realised as a painted work and exhibited at the ‘Open West Midlands’ exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the autumn of 2012.

Strategies Undertaken

A number of drawings were produced that aimed at leading the eye away from two touching elements to an empty (paper/wall) or negative space that exists between them. ‘In Between’ was constructed of two units – one an upright rectangular component touching the other unit – a five sided element - at a single point along its lower edge vertex. The empty/negative space between them was deliberately closed on three sides only; the fourth left open to activate the space - what appeared incomplete was completed in the mind’s eye.