Drawing Is/Not Building: Adam Art Gallery

25 April - 28 June, 2015

By Bryar Clayton

Drawing Is/Not Building was comprised of works by three architects; Sarah Treadwell, Roland Snooks and Simon Twose (who additionally curated the exhibition). Each conceptualised drawing as not just a preliminary stage of the design process, but as an instrumental means to determine the way in which matter is formed; a means which they argue is often hidden away during the execution and after completion of a final product.

On the top floor were two works by Sarah Treadwell. The first, Oceanic Section 1 & 2, paid homage to the Rena disaster of 2011. Treadwell documented the incident on unstretched canvas by a process of paint layering. The colour palette was moody; predominantly grey, with lashes of charcoal and a faint hint of orange. Not only was this reflective of the incident itself, whereby the colour acted as a direct representation of the oil that had leeched into the Pacific, but it also referenced the damaging environmental effects that came as a result of the disaster. Her second work was, again, comprised of two parts. Oceanic Foundations: Rising Water 1 and Oceanic Foundations: Rising Water 2, the latter being an exact reproduction of the former only in a negative version. These more experimental works were fashioned in a very geographical, grid-like manner which served to illustrate the continuous tidal movements in the Pacific Ocean.

Snooks exhibited a single, yet impressive, piece AgentBody Prototype; an amalgamation of steel and aluminium, suspended behind the front window of the gallery. The three-dimensionality and sheer size of the structure invited visual attention, however, the austere frigidity of the sculpture, with it’s stark, jagged edges, demanded space, and in this way created a haptic distance between itself and the viewer. Snooks sought to explore the relationship between human and computer authorship. So, despite it being constructed by the human hand, the form of AgentBody Prototype was conceived of by a computer algorithm. Snooks wished to highlight the importance of acknowledging the origins of design processes, which are not always blatantly obvious upon viewing the final product.

Twose exhibited three separate works which occupied the lower floor in its entirety; a collection of photographs, a series of miniature wax models and his monumental Concrete Drawing. The photographs and wax models provided context for, and collectively depicted, the design process for the spectacle which resided in the Lower Chartwell Gallery. Concrete Drawing, took up the majority of space in the Lower Chartwell thus dwarfing all of its spectators, much like any building does. In saying that, the lack of space between the structure and the walls created an engaging intimacy. Additionally, the indentations on the concrete blocks alongside the protruding rectangular walls provided a tactile three-dimensionality. By using concrete at such a scale, Twose was able to blur the lines between building and drawing.

The pieces by Treadwell, Snooks and Twose were neither drawings nor buildings; but that is the point. They were not created with the intention of pitting drawing against building; rather, they served as an explorative means to determine how matter is formed, and also as a way of exposing the experimental nature of architectural design.

Photo 1: Sarah Treadwell, Oceanic Foundations: Rising Water 1 & 2, 2014, mixed media on unsretched canvas, in the exhibition Drawing Is/Not Building at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington (Photo: Shaun Waugh)

Photo 2: Roland Snooks, AgentBody Prototype, 2015 (detail), cut steel, aluminium, In the exhibition Drawing Is/Not Building at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington (photo: Shaun Waugh)

Photo 3: Simon Twose, detail view of Concrete Drawing, 2014-5, concrete, polystyrene, wax, photographs and graphite, in the exhibition Drawing Is/Not Building at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington (photo: Shaun Waugh)

Photo 4: Simon Twose, detail view of Concrete Drawing, 2014-5, concrete, polystyrene, wax, photographs and graphite, in the exhibition Drawing Is/Not Building at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington (photo: Shaun Waugh)