But Who Tried Without Success
Drawing
1986 (made)
1986 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Simon Lewty makes drawings which bring together image and text. He builds up a drawing by staining and incising paper, and then adding translucent tissue layers each carrying parts of the composition. The process is intuitive and somewhat unpredictable. Words and mysterious motifs embedded in the paper combine to create a dense personal narrative that functions like a map of the artist’s unconscious mind. Many of the motifs – dotted lines, arrows and so on – look very much like the lines on a real map. Each of the drawings takes its title from a disembodied fragment of the text – in this case, the words ‘But who tried without success’, suggesting an elusive thought or a dream only partly grasped.
Object details
Category | |
Object type | |
Title | But Who Tried Without Success (assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | Crayon, pencil and acrylic on paper |
Brief description | 'But Who Tried Without Success', drawing by Simon Lewty, United Kingdom, 1986 |
Physical description | Dense map-like drawing with imaginary shapes and figures, and hand-written text. |
Dimensions |
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Marks and inscriptions | S.W. LEWTY 1986 (Signed and dated) |
Gallery label | Lewty makes drawings by staining and incising paper, then adding translucent tissue layers, each carrying parts of the composition. The process is intuitive and unpredictable. Embedded in the paper, words and mysterious motifs combine to create a dense personal narrative that functions like a map of the artist's unconscious mind.(2007) |
Subject depicted | |
Summary | Simon Lewty makes drawings which bring together image and text. He builds up a drawing by staining and incising paper, and then adding translucent tissue layers each carrying parts of the composition. The process is intuitive and somewhat unpredictable. Words and mysterious motifs embedded in the paper combine to create a dense personal narrative that functions like a map of the artist’s unconscious mind. Many of the motifs – dotted lines, arrows and so on – look very much like the lines on a real map. Each of the drawings takes its title from a disembodied fragment of the text – in this case, the words ‘But who tried without success’, suggesting an elusive thought or a dream only partly grasped. |
Collection | |
Accession number | P.71-1987 |
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Record created | July 27, 2000 |
Record URL |
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