Durational Drawing

Durational Drawing was first made during Making Space project at 1After320 in 2016. Alongside engaging with the physical spatiality of the architectural site during the project, another query gradually emerged in the process: Could time itself be understood as a form of space? Can the logic of containment of physical space be applied to the containment of time? If an architectural space possesses boundaries, duration and underlying structure, could time similarly be contained, traversed and experienced as a spatial entity? This line of questioning resulted in the making of ‘Durational Drawing’, an investigation into time as a material and spatial condition.

Durational Drawing consists of a continuous linear drawing that was executed over a period of ten consecutive days, where I set myself to draw onto a long paper scroll each day from 10 AM to 6 PM. Governed by a simple yet rigorous process of repetitive mark-making, the drawing became less about composing a predetermined image and more about allowing the duration itself to guide what it would make, and what form it would generate.

Imagined as a linear space in the format of a timeline, its visual composition emerged out of the sustained rhythm of the bodily intervention with the repetition of formal gestures, and evoking a meditative state of being through its process. The work extends an ongoing inquiry into drawing as an embodied practice, where the repetitive actions simultaneously respond to the internal states of mind and the physical act of making. Here, the drawing becomes a record of lived duration, where space and time continuum constitute the fundamental structure that weaves, holds and sustains the work together. Upon completion, the scroll was subsequently divided into five panels according to the compositional rhythms that had naturally emerged.

Note on Artistic Process: The work departs from my pre-existing concerns on drawings –Drawing on paper reflects a series of concerns prompted by repetitive action, both fuelled by internal (somatic & psychic) and external (drawing & environment) phenomena simultaneously. While making repetitive patterns using the line as form, both mind and body are engaged as machine – moving in methodical, rhythmical motion – mind in a confined space, while the body, aided by two tools (pen & ruler) that while making the straight line endures the pain, heightened by the awareness of the self, the surface and the activity.

Link to the project https://parulguptastudio.com/work/project-making-space/