Scribbling/Scrabbling at Platform, Glasgow
Sat 21 Sep 2024 → Fri 10 Jan 2025
We are looking at the wall, when we first float the idea of one giant painting for Platform, we share a sidelong glance. The prospect of a colossal painting is irresistible.
As we begin planning it for production, we become more comfortable with the idea of rough edges. In fact, as some parts get rougher, more collaged, and less perfect, it feels like it’s growing into something that’s a part of us—patched up, a bit messy.
We review our lockdown drawings—A4 sheets we pass back and forth between us (we must have 500-600 of them)—and select a few to bring into Platform, imagining how these small, scruffy drawings could transform into something architectural in scale. Fraser had picked this blue and black drawing with bold, thick, curved blue lines -like giant mechanical teeth, roughly held together by some strong black lines. I remember him telling me a couple of years ago about a bridge shape he had in mind, something he saw on a walk that stayed with him, this weird line that he kept drawing.
It’s a powerful drawing—almost aggressive, with bluish smudges in the background. The curves feel important because they will interact with the architecture of the space, the very straight, linear structure, turning the entire space into one giant 3D drawing.
The drawings we are choosing from—our lockdown drawings—are created through a collaborative process. We pass them back and forth in a big envelope, each adding something until we decide they’re finished.
In this chosen drawing, I think I painted the smudgy marks, and then Fraser added the lines. Then he probably handed it back to me, and I decided it was done. As Two-Step, working collaboratively, it doesn’t really matter who made what mark. There’s an act of letting go, of moving from ‘that’s mine’ to ‘that’s ours.’ It’s like a marriage—the little bits of Fraser and I in the work combine to create something with a bit of magic in it. That magic comes from letting go of our egos—of not needing the work to look like mine or feel like mine. It’s about making space for wildness, for the unknown and the unexpected.
We start painting on the giant canvas, and it’s fun—physically demanding because of the scale, but fun. We try out some marks on a big piece of test canvas, watering down blues and using an old painting on fabric scrunched up as a massive sponge. Then we roll out the big sections of canvas, carefully measuring and cutting them to size. To paint it I crawl around the canvas, making marks while Fraser directs me, overseeing the overall composition. After starting a bit awkwardly, I begin to follow my instincts, dragging the sponge, not really seeing how it looks. And that’s better—I am in it, just moving. It feels more like a performance or dance than measured painting, with Fraser choreographing but letting me find my rhythm and movement.
Bottom of Form
Then Fraser goes for the big blue lines, grabbing a bucket full of paint and a big brush, roughly following the lines on the initial drawing but then kind of making it up. The large painting is a completely different aspect ratio to the A4 drawing, we follow the drawing on the left-hand side of the big work and follow our guts for the rest of it. I watch Fraser do the first blue line, see he is doing good and start getting stuck into the black. We watch each other a bit, then we each get to work, maybe ask one another – ‘I’m thinking of doing a mark over here kind of like this?’, ‘Yep, I like that – do it.’ ‘Okay’, ‘Go, for it, I trust you’.
