‘Accumulation’ featured in The Line Drawing Project.

Alexandra Blum, Accumulation, graphite on paper, 42 x 59.4 cm, 2021

Thoroughly enjoyed taking part in The Line Drawing Project, where each invited artist is asked to respond to a drawing by the previous participating artist.

I responded strongly to artist Rachael Causer’s use of negative space. I loved the way it felt as though her ‘absent’ forms described the space displaced by objects, rather than the objects themselves, in turn emphasising the fragility of the ecologies she refers to.

That fragility is strikingly evident at Angerstein Wharf, an area on the banks of the Thames which I have been drawing since 2019. My drawing ‘Accumulation’ focuses on the conveyor belt which brings aggregate from ship to shore, and the abundance of activity swirling around it: tidal waters ceaselessly ebbing and flowing, vegetation striving to reclaim living space, alongside gulls scavenging.

I’ve used negative space to describe both the columns supporting the conveyor belt and the tree branches which reach into the bottom right of the drawing. As the drawing evolved, I was fascinated to see how the visual correlation between these two areas of negative space, and their consequent evocation of both absence and presence, began to articulate the precarious relationship between the enormous elemental and industrial forces at work in this area'.