Hand Drawn Action Packed features ten international artists whose practice springs from drawing and reveals the medium’s infinite possibilities for narrative invention: Marcel Dzama, Marcel van Eeden, Inci Eviner, Yun-Fei Ji, William Kentridge, Nalini Malani, Otobong Nkanga, Raymond Pettibon, Amy Sillman and Rinus Van de Velde.

The exhibition explores narrative in drawing and its many forms: from stories unfolding through a sequence, to single images combined with words, and animation. The artists in Hand Drawn Action Packed make imaginative use of their tools - from a smartphone, a stick of charcoal to pen and ink - for story-telling, social critique and political allegory.

Three artists have created new works especially for the exhibition. Marcel van Eeden (b. 1965, Netherlands) who mixes fact and fiction in a series of 28 film noir style drawings, inspired by a 1936 newspaper report of a body found in a ditch on the outskirts of St Albans.

Otobong Nkanga (b. 1974, Nigeria) visualises humanity's relationship with the earth’s resources in a suite of pictographic acrylics, illustrating the politics and poetics of geography. Rinus Van de Velde (b. 1983, Belgium) has made two large scale charcoal drawings on canvas that depict an imaginary artist, a self-mythologising painter who is preparing his own story for posterity.

Like van Eeden and Van de Velde, Raymond Pettibon (b. 1957, USA) mixes image and text in his drawings, in ways that open up the meaning of both. Language generates imagery in the animated drawings of Amy Sillman (b. 1955, USA). The work included here was created by using smartphone technology and in collaboration with poet Lisa Robertson.

‌In the video animation by Inci Eviner (b. 1956, Turkey) human figures interact robotically with a hand-drawn underground scene - an allegory of artistic resistance and tyranny. Political realities are subtly communicated in Yun-Fei Ji’s (b. 1963, China) brush and ink scroll drawings depicting dispossession, forced migration and dictatorial power.‌

Hindu cosmologies and fantasmatic creatures are present in Indian artist Nalini Malani’s (b. 1946, Karachi) painterly drawings on Mylar, whist her animated film - which references Greek mythology – is a quiet meditation on transience. William Kentridge’s (b. 1955, South Africa) sequence of intimate charcoal drawings of a woman getting into the bath are like stills in one of his renowned stop-frame animations. Marcel Dzama’s (b. 1974, Canada) portrays a theatrical world of masked and costumed performers in delicately drawn illustrations.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated zine-style publication, designed by Stinsensqueeze, which maintains the spirit of the exhibition and features texts by exhibition curator Roger Malbert.

Images: Otobong Nkanga, Scaffolding - Loss (detail), from Scaffolding Series, 2018. © the artist, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam.
Inci Eviner, Beuys Underground (still), 2017. © the artist, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Galeri Nev Istanbul.

ROGER MALBERT IN CONVERSATION
Saturday 16 March 2019
2.00pm - 3.00pm
Hunterian Art Gallery Lecture Theatre
Free - no booking required

Celebrate the opening of Hand Drawn Action Packed with an intimate conversation with Roger Malbert, the exhibition curator and author of Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art and other publications. Malbert served as Head of Hayward Gallery Touring for over 30 years, championing contemporary artists, presenting exhibitions that speak to human issues, and introducing art to a broader public.

DRAWING IN THE WORLD
Friday 29 March 2019
11.00am - 4.30pm
Kelvin Hall
Booking required - find out more

Created in association with the exhibition Hand Drawn Action Packed, Drawing in the World is a day of events which will unpack the most dominant themes of the show. Through an artist-led drawing workshop, a film screening and a panel discussion, participants and audience members will have the chance to explore the agency of drawing in our contemporary world. The day’s programme is curated by Ally Zlatar, Isabelle Thul, Javier Aregger and Jeanie Black (Masters in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), 2018-19). Workshop places are limited. Booking via Eventbrite. Film-screening and panel discussion are free, but booking is required.