Research – Top Secret Drawing

We asked questions of David Mach’s collages, and the public will do the same with the artwork we make. But how do you read art?

I asked each artist to do a drawing of whatever they wanted on a post-it note but to keep it hidden, DON’T SHOW ANYBODY.

Groups of 4-5, sat in a circles. I distributed the drawings back out again. The aim of the game is to make up a story using the random drawings you get – even if you don’t know what the drawing is of – just make it up. Line up the drawings and create a narrative. In other words – read the drawings.

The artists did this with huge imaginations – some of the stories were so elaborate. One particular highlight was ‘she looked to the sky and the stars were shaped like apples’, I wish I recorded everything each group said! The narrative came easily to them – we can all make up stories. We looked around us at David Mach’s work. We can read his images like a story book – its just up to you, the viewer to make it up, and its up to us, the artists to give the story some roots, some content.

Luckily, we will get a second chance to do this! I will record the artists ‘reading’ the artworks like they did with they post-its will end up being THE AUDIO GUIDE for the final exhibition.