Paul Harrison
Peripheral ARTeries
Pop Up Addis Exhibition, Group Show, May 9th, 7-10pm, Bata, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2013
you describe why drawing is such an essential part of your practice?
'Solidifying time, making time material' another artist who has had an influence on my current thought is Francis Alys who has this mantra in his practice. It is one of 'Maximum Effort = Minimum Result' and for me this really has a connection. With animation as a movement of energy and I guess this could be one of the main elements or the start of my own creative process.
Drawing has been a constant presence throughout my life from an early age and it really is the basis of most of my work. Quite often I find the start of an idea emerge from a drawing and in fact all my animations are driven through this process. I am completely self taught with regards to animation, it was through drawing that I learnt to animate. Its a real pleasure as well to be in love with this art form because it is by its nature very diverse. Animation has this insatiable, awe inspiring, element in its standard interpretation, which is that animation is concerned with the creation of the illusion of movement. However for me this is just one of many possible uses of the word and as an artist I aim to expand on the existing notions and forms of animation.
In terms of technical considerations I really attempt to focus on blending drawing, modelling, and material marks. With the new immaterial digital spaces and processes that are now available to artists who work with computers. I really think this is an interesting tension to many artists these days. Creating work that combines the hand made with digital processes for me is quite the technical focus. Going back to drawing, and why it is so important to my work, if you look deeply at my art I believe you can see a strong use of line. Both literally and more subjectively in that a lot of the work does follow a line, it does have a narrative that can be interpreted.
For example, I still think there is huge amounts of potential left in the workings of the FPS or 'frames per second' method of movement. In that it allows for what the artist William Kentridge describes as a process of
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