Lucienne Cole

AH UM

Watercolour Drawings, 305 x 229 mm, 2020.

Over the last few years drawing has become a very important part of both my practice and my wellbeing. During lockdown my front room has been serving as a makeshift studio where drawing has been pretty much an everyday thing. I’ve also taken to lino printing as I’ve not been able to screen-print and I’ve been losing myself, or perhaps more correctly, finding myself in my watercolour palette. I have produced a substantial pile of these watercolours to date and I think, in many ways, they have been a reaction against all the horribleness of what is happening. They are aesthetically pleasing and often contain natural elements and decorative motifs. I’m imagining a lot of them flowing on silk and that they could become fabrics or wallpapers: perhaps an interior you could only imagine alluding to, in another time and another place, which is perhaps where we would all rather be at the moment.

‘Gaiety allows us to have no fear and allows us another solution for the problems of life’
Sophie Tauber- Arp, Artist.

‘Drawing is not simply a profession, it is the release of an intrinsic, structural energy, a joy’
Geta Bratescu, Artist.

The title ‘AH UM’ refers to an album by Jazz musician Charlie Mingus from 1956 which I have been playing a lot while I work.