Drawing on evidence

Next time you're at an art exhibition try this experiment: Ask the person you are with to imagine that they can steal one picture from the exhibition and take it home: which one would they steal? Then, at the end of your visit, compare your answers and try to figure out why you each chose the images you did.

Sometimes the answers are personal and wrapped up in a complex array of feelings about the particular subject matter in the picture. But very often the selection seems to have a lot to do with subtle, almost indescribable features of the image that reach into our psyche and resonate somewhere deep inside. It is often very hard to put into words our reasons for the connection we feel with certain pieces of art. I think that we are often attracted to images and stories that seem to vibrate with a kind of 'truth'. And by truth, I mean a version of reality that seems to correspond with the world as we understand it to be.

Exactitude is not truth.
- Henri Matisse

Truth in image making is a kind of accuracy – but it is not synonymous with photographic accuracy. Truth, I think, is the ability to reveal the things that are important but not visible; things that once we see them through art we feel they are undeniably and unquestionably self-evident.

Images can express different kinds of truths; visual truths about appearance, conceptual truths about ideas, or compositional truths about relationships. And I believe that trying to express these truths in a compelling way is what the struggle of making art is really all about.

Truth in drawing or painting emerges through the ability of the maker of the image to marshal the evidence before them in a compelling way. All art is based on some form of evidence. The evidence that artists draw on is the visual and conceptual reality that acts as a reference point in the creation of the image. When making an image an artist is constantly referring to information gathered through a form of direct or reflective investigation. The evidence base includes an infinite range of perceptions such as the subtle way an edge of a form blends into the background, the unique way light falls on a particular surface, the tension that might exist in the relationship between objects or people, the feeling that is created by the sound or smell of a place, and so on.

Through a combination of observation and intuition, 'facts' are gathered about the subject of the image and this evidence is organised and presented through the medium of the work. An artist chooses what is important and constructs the image through a process of aesthetic selection and decision-making. Truth in image making comes from the ability to access the evidence, assess it carefully, select what is important, and organise that evidence in a way that give others a way to see the world through fresh eyes. When in the presence of an image that moves us, I think we are often being presented with irrefutable evidence organised in a compelling way.

Evidence is not a word that is spoken in creative circles very often. Some believe that creativity is all about inventing things out of thin air; a kind of “making things up” using leaps of imagination by pulling ideas and imagery from out of nowhere. Under this definition, creativity is regarded as the ability to actually disengage from facts and evidence in the mistaken belief that taking time to see and listen to the world as it is, to treat things as phenomenological experiences that provide a foundation of information to fuel the creative process, is somehow limiting. For some, drawing and painting is an act of unbridled liberation from the confines of being connected to what is happening around us as participants in what it means to be human. To introduce the need to be faithful to evidence of any kind is, for some, a form of slavery to be resisted at all costs. This kind of detached creativity often produces images (and products and brands and lots of other things) that are seductive on the surface but lack depth, intrigue (truth) underneath.

Making art of any kind is, in some ways, a lot like being a researcher. A researcher is obligated to present the facts and evidence in a truthful and accurate way. I've seen many researchers who focus on presenting the facts objectively. But the problem is, research, like art, is not objective - it is entirely subjective. Where we look and the questions we ask are motivated by subjectivity. And the most skilful researchers find a way to present facts and evidence in a way that is not just a replay of the data in the same sort of way that a photograph can play back the visual data of a situation via a detached “eye”. Great researchers present the evidence in a way that does a lot more than confirm what the world looks like. They apply a subjective lens and tell us a “story” through the evidence that resonates precisely because it touches our deep understanding of the world but does it in a way that helps us see the facts as they are but through clearer eyes.

The camera sees everything at once – we don’t. There is a hierarchy.
- David Hockney

Great drawing and great research are both engaged in the observation and presentation of evidence in a way that illuminates and creates insight into what it means to be a human being. Through both disciplines we are presented with facts and evidence in an attempt to translate them into a compelling picture that is both truthful and resonates with the viewer/listener. The harder a researcher or artist looks and the deeper they probe into the reality of their subject, the richer the evidence base will be and the potentially richer the resulting work will become.

Two pens, three drawings

Double head

56 x 38 cm

pen on paper

Focus group

56 x 38 cm

pen on paper

Head 2

38 x 28.5 cm

pen and red biro on paper

Are doodling and drawing the same thing?

In any meeting inside any organisation in any part of the world, there is likely to be at least one doodler. This is the person who appears to be taking studious notes during the meeting, but is in actual fact busily filling the margins of their notebook with a complex mosaic of patterns, textures, shapes and figures in blue biro.  

I’m always surprised when the doodler, after several uninterrupted minutes of concentrated mark making, lifts their head and adds a useful comment in the discussion that is taking place around them. How is this possible? How can they have such focused and dedicated concentration on their drawing, and yet still manage to follow the flow of the conversation?

The reason, I’ve discovered, is because although doodling and drawing look the same from the outside, are very different on the inside.

Doodling, as it turns out, is a kind of listening, not a kind of drawing. Mark making for a doodler is a way of translating the energy involved in the processing of what they are hearing in the meeting into a form of visual notation. Doodling is a lot closer to taking written notes than it is to making an image. When a doodler returns to their doodle after the meeting, the image seems to contain the memory of the things that were spoken in the room. A doodler can often look at their doodle days or even weeks later and recall elements of the conversation that took place with great precision. This is because the image takes them back to the time of creation. Although the marks are not illustrations of what has been spoken about in the meeting, the marks seem to unlock the memory of the conversation. The intricate patterns and stream-of-consciousness imagery are a kind of mnemonic hieroglyph. 

The doodlers I’ve spoken to about this report that they can listen better and have greater recall when they doodle in a meeting. Some say that without doodling they would need to have eye contact with other people in the room which would be a distraction to their ability to listen effectively. Somehow, by doodling, they effectively create an internal feedback loop that transfers the energy involved in processing what is being heard into a graphic mark that serves as both a record of the information and a key to unlock the memory of the discussion at a later date.

But I find doodling very odd. This is because I draw, but I don’t doodle. Actually it’s not that I don’t doodle, it’s that I can’t doodle. I don’t have anything against doodling (it looks like a great way to spend time in a meeting, and it has practical benefits), it’s just that the second my pen touches the paper to create an image, my focus shifts entirely to the drawing being created and my awareness of the conversation around me stops almost entirely. I don’t understand how people can draw and listen at the same time. My brain just isn’t wired for doodling. And I suspect it is the same for many people who draw.

Drawing, for me, is an all-consuming act of decision-making and selection. Even casual sketching requires a degree of focus that won’t allow information that is not central to the creation of the image to interrupt the flow of the thinking-deciding-mark making. So drawing, for me, is very different from doodling. Doodling is a way to listen and recall. Drawing is a way to see and translate.

Next time you see someone in a meeting making an image, ask them whether they are doodling or drawing. If they’re doodling, then let them carry on, but if they’re drawing then it might be best to suggest they put down their pen and pay attention.

[For more on this, you can see a very passionate and lucid description of the doodling process and its advantages in a TED talk by Sunni Brown at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sunni_brown.html