Perpetual Dance: Repetition as a Pathway to Clarity

Art is freedom, but too much choice can be a hinderance to the creative process. To give myself the best possible chance of success, I will often set parameters to better direct the clarity of my work. Here, I am sharing with you a strategy of repetition which is helping to keep me focused in the development of a new series of drawings titled ‘Perpetual Dance’ that will be shown at the ‘Stillness and Storm’ exhibition in October, 2025.

A wooden mannequin becomes an unlikely vehicle for expressing continual change

Isolating subject, format and colour palette

Starting with some restrictions provides a frame of reference from which you can deviate if necessary. Get something out and don’t worry about quality, it’s far easier to know where to go when you have something tangible rather than ideas with no physical form.

My choice of subject was a cheap wooden mannequin I had bought for drawing practice. I wanted to give the object a sense of inner life that it doesn’t possess. The mannequin was to become a vehicle for communicating ideas about perpetual change, it offered options for posing the arms and legs in unusual and dynamic ways. Moving the figure slightly and producing a quick sketch would mimic the way stop motion animation is created but rather than separate images, the sketches would be overlaid, seeing through the figure into the paper behind. I chose a panoramic format to best emphasise this movement and to depict the subject in monochrome to bring the full attention to the mass of the figures without the distraction of colour.

Narrowing material choices

Don’t be dogmatic about your first choice of materials, if it isn’t working, change it.

I was convinced that Indian ink would be the ideal medium to depict the figure, but I was wrong. Only through producing multiple drawings in ink could I identify that my initial desire to use this medium was not conducive to the intention to depict a sense of movement. The drawings just didn’t feel right to me, they were either too stark and hard-edged or too pale and devoid of the subtlety I was looking for. Switching to willow charcoal showed me an instant improvement which allowed these nuances to show in the drawings. Rather than ruin the drawings, the grubbiness from inadvertently rubbing the willow charcoal with my sleeve as I worked from left to right helped bring both an atmospheric quality and unifying tone to the mass of rotating, abstracted figures.

Assorted willow charcoal sticks

Repetition to get out of your way

Fixation on results often leads to disappointment, instead focus on looking, sensing and responding. Analysis is a separate exercise and should be treated as such.

Repetition is an invaluable strategy for removing unhelpful internal dialogue when making art. When I produce my best work, I am fully engaged in the experience of making not in analysing the experience as it happens. I find the act of repetition, creating one drawing after another with the same subject and same medium generates a rhythm which allows this internal dialogue to fade away. When engaged in this repetition, I have noticed a cycle where the drawings begin tentatively and overly static before gradually improving, reaching a peak where they flow more easily, the line quality improves, and the drawings possess a sense of life missing from those first drawings. This peak will eventually fade and the quality diminishes, it is at this point that I stop before reviewing the experiments several days later.

Indian ink was too stark and hard-edged

The willow charcoal provided a more appropriate texture for the subject than Indian ink

Distance before decisions

Space is a necessary component of making good decisions. Wait a few days before reviewing work and if possible, choose a time of day when your thinking is most clear.

Making art does weird things to your perception and it’s easy to be fooled by what aspects of an artwork are working and which aren’t. I have learnt that the best thing for me once producing anything is to leave it for at least a couple of days before reviewing the results and making any decisions. Conclusion

Narrow the focus to identify the path forward.

Narrowing parameters is a useful way of finding a way forward with a series of work. For me this is not an intellectual exercise but one of doing, taking time and then reflecting. The narrower the parameters, the easier it is to identify subtle differences in how variance in line quality, form and rhythm influence the feel of an artwork. Ultimately, it is how I feel when reviewing the experiments that influences the direction of the final artworks. Art is primarily experienced viscerally not analytically and reminding myself of this helps to guide me towards more successful outcomes in my practice.

Repeated work eventually leading to a clear direction forwards