18
They most probably know about the subject they are searching for; they
Irene Kopelman
have a trained eye for specific qualities in a sample. Conversely, when I draw I do not have a specific goal. I can focus on any
A SHORT STORY OF
feature, I can use any method, and I can set any parameters. At the same
A PHD TRAJECTORY
time, during drawing, I am constantly pondering on why and how I draw. My drawing is also a reflection on the medium as such. Back to the PhD trajectory. Before coming to Europe, my drawings were about natural landscapes. I am from a city surrounded by beautiful mountains and my practice consisted in doing walks and making drawings in that landscape. Artists that influenced me at that time were Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, and Robert Smithson. When I moved to Amsterdam I realized that the notion of natural landscape as I knew it was no longer there. Rather, landscape became an artificial construction human beings could decide to modify. At that point, my interest slowly moved to natural science collections. I worked with crystals, fossils, insects, and so on. That led me into quite a number of projects, one of which – UBX expression – I have mentioned above as part of the PhD trajectory. UBX expression is a project carried out in the Entomological Collection at the University of Amsterdam. The research focused on the morphology in insect patterns. I basically sat in that collection for a number of months drawing butterflies’ wing patterns. The outcome of the project was one hundred and twenty drawings of 8x8 cm. After quite a number of projects of this kind, I started longing for confronting my work again with the experience of nature as such. So far I managed to do three projects engaged with landscapes. Lévy Flight is a project departing from a field trip in Hawaii’s National Park. The trip focused on realizing a series of drawings of lava formations at the site. After returning from the field trip, I made a series of clay pieces reconstructing fragments of the Hawaii landscape. Meditation Piece began with an invitation for making a piece based on Allan Kaprow’s scores. The project would entail at least two stages: a research trip and an exhibition. I decided to work with one of the Kaprow scores called “meditation piece” in creating my own meditation piece. The parameters were to make a trip to Egypt’s white desert with the aim of collecting only one stone. Back in my studio I would draw the same stone every day from the same point of view during one month. The outcome was thirty drawings of 30x30 cm. Fifty Meters Distance or More started with a trip to the Antarctic. On January 6,
2010 I departed from Ushuaia, Argentina towards the Antarctic territory in the sailboat Spirit of Sydney, on which I embarked with seven other people. The trip lasted 26 days all together. During the expedition, I intended to draw landscapes with the icebergs and glaciers I expected to see during the trip. Weather and space constrictions, cold, snow, rain, the boat drifting, the boat changing locations, the reduced space, the impossibility to go on shore by your own will – all of that was part of the process and the project. I did return with a series of pencil on paper drawings and a small series of watercolors. I would like to mention that during these years I have done more projects than the ones here described. I have chosen a number of projects that I thought could help in discussing a variety of issues present in my work. The inclusion of works of different nature in the PhD project made me
maHKUzine