Justine Giles, 2013, Beaconsfield 101 [Ink pen and watercolour on paper 295 x 420mm]
I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of reproducing. One of the things I love most about it is the slippage that occurs through the intervention of machine and hand. I have discovered that I prefer to work from copies of the original so that my art is twice removed… the end result is always a copy of a copy, which has usually been mediated by a machine in between (either a camera or a photocopier or both). In this drawing the text slants down on the left hand side slightly to show the curve of a book that has been photocopied. The hand rendering of the typeface riddles it with inconsistencies caused by human error, a tired unsteady hand, a brain that misreads the shape of the serifs.
When I went to reproduce the tea stain on this drawing, I thought about painting it on with tea, because it would be more authentic, and then I realised what a silly notion that was! If I am interested in the slippage that occurs from mimicry it makes more sense to try to reproduce the colour of tea with a medium that, by reason of it not being the same liquid, can never quite get it right.
Justine Giles, 2013, Beaconsfield 101 (detail). [Ink pen and watercolour on paper 295 x 420mm]
Rhubarb Pyjamas 