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This picture features in a film by our curator John Sheeran about the artist's ink drawings, which you can watch by clicking on the film camera icon in the dark grey box above.
The majority of Mierins's drawings are done in charcoal pencil on paper. In the early to mid 1990s, Mierins experimented with ink figure drawings, working with a brush directly from a female model on an A1 sheet of white paper.
Curator's Comment
Like the charcoal pencil drawings of Laimonis Mierins, the ink and wash drawings are done on A1 size paper and deal exclusively with the female nude figure. He began them as an experiment and soon became fascinated by the artistic challenge he faced in trying to control the medium. He found that drawing with a brush and liquid on paper posed all sorts of technical problems: how much ink to load onto the brush to make a particular mark; how to get a variety of descriptive line; how to achieve the sensitivity of line he was used to in his charcoal drawings; how to maintain the strengths and weaknesses of black in a drawing; how to prevent ink from running down or across the page.
In the end, instead of trying to control the medium fully, Mierins just accepted it and let it be, working with the medium rather than against it, and using its unpredictability for its expressive possibilities.
A Mierins ink and wash drawing has great strength and authority on the page. Like his charcoal drawings, they are emphatic visual statements, confident, with no hesitation. I like their sense of completely free expression. Sometimes the brushwork feels controlled and the form is carefully described with just a few brush marks flowing effortlessly into one another. Or by contrast you can get one which has an explosive energy about it.
The artist wants to make a statement and get it down on the page urgently. He does not care about the splashes. It is all about getting his emotional response down. The drawing becomes an emotional moment.
Mierins asks a lot from his models with acrobatic poses. But the contorted figure adds to the expressive feeling of the picture. And it is probably as far as Mierins can get from the academic figure drawing of his art training.
Framing
Please note that this artwork is sold unframed. We are happy to advise on mounting and framing. We can also arrange high quality framing for you, at an additional cost. Please contact us to discuss options and costs.
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