Drawing facing calligraphy: surface, subject and Su Shi

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the search for an attribution of meaning to the marks on a surface promotes the irruption of language in drawing, and its consequent stiffening. In contrast to western culture, Chinese calligraphy, to which the trace of drawing belongs, unfolds the rhythm contained in its characters and removes the mere search for meaning from the relationship with writing and, in turn, with drawing. The poetry, paintings and calligraphy of Su Shi, master of the Sung dynasty, are presented in dialogue with the contemporary graphic work of Rebeca Font, in order to detach drawing from its ‘skin’. In this way, drawing unfolds in an unthinkable space, alluding to Foucault, and reveals an implicit multiplicity, which contains in itself the human being, and which in constant movement manifests its need of being in heterotopia.

KEYWORDS:

• Drawing
• Chinese calligraphy
• Su Shi
• rhythm
• language
• multiplicity

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebeca Font

Rebeca Font is a professor at Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (UVic-UCC) and an artist, scenographer and architect with ETSAB Barcelona School of Architecture. Her doctoral research (at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK) is based on drawing and its relationship to the body, the environment and language. Her works, projections and performances link drawing, calligraphy and language, and span to new technologies including motion capture. She has led workshops, collective experiences and conferences on the perception and understanding of space through drawing recently in Spain, India, and Argentina.