You'll Never Know : Drawing and Random Interference
Jeni Walwin was the Co-curator for this Hayward Gallery National Touring Exhibition

Jeni Walwin conceived and selected this exhibition in collaboration with the artist Henry Krokatsis. The show looks at process - the ways in which artists employ methods of drawing that are subject to random interference. Many of the works involve a form of indirect mark making, whereby the artist relinquishes control of the final composition, leaving chance to play a crucial part in determining the image.

The exhibition included for example, low-tech printmaking (Ian Breakwell's use of rubber stamps, Mark Wallinger's potato prints); images created by fire and smoke (Henry Krokatsis' drawings using carbon deposits from burning rags); impressions of objects (Mona Hatoum's wax rubbings) and actions carrying meaning from other contexts (Stephen Cripps' traces from explosive performances), works incorporating unpredictable drips and splashes (Richard Long's mud drawings, Ian Davenport's drip paintings), works involving an improvised mechanical system (Steve Pippin's Laundromat Locomotion series, Jem Finer's chart recorder sourcing the electrical fluctuations of a de-tuned radio) and images created through natural processes (Keir Smith's rust drawings and Tim Knowles' tree drawings).

The exhibition toured to the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle, The Lowry in Salford, and the New Art Gallery, Walsall.

Images: l-r
Ian Davenport, Poured Paints: Ice White, water-based paint on paper, 2003
Steven Pippin, Laundromat Locomotion, photograph, 1997
Alice Maher, Helix Virginius, etching and mixed media, 2004, from the Snail Chronicles