ROOM DRAWINGS, 2014

The ROOM drawings are an attempt to draw inner space, rather than represent an object as perceived in space:
"This type of perspectival rendering, where parallel lines do not converge, is often used by architects to give a solidlooking three-dimensional view of a structure. By extending the orthogonal lines to the edge of the page and sometimes
multiplying the perspectival matrix with paler lines around the figure, Gormley has reversed that effect so that the
depicted sculpture seems to vibrate and lose determinate boundaries."
Extract from 'Sculpting Darkness' by Margaret Iversen, ROOM, London: Corbin & King, 2014, p. 78
NORTH LIGHT, 2014

Like the earlier series, BODY & LIGHT, these drawings evoke fleeting moments of illumination in the darkness of the
body, the earth, the ocean or deep space. The drawings are swiftly executed using a Chinese calligraphy brush and black
pigment and casein. The pigment disperses at different speeds and densities, enhancing the feelings of immersion. Light
plays a major role, acting as a foil to the weight of the ground or body, evoking the luminous beginnings of astral
matter. The works seem to emerge, rather than be willed, into form.
TANKER DRAWINGS, 2013 2014

The 'Dark drawings' act as a sort of counterpoint: they map a parallel and imaginary projection into and a repeated
probing of the inner dimensions of the 'Expansion works' - dimensions of which the sculptures' external forms give us
an indication, but only an incomplete measure. The impulses implied in these series of drawings, suspended in a kind of
tension between density and weightlessness, darkness and light, connect with the words of the great thinker of space

Gaston Bachelard: 'Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to the sort of expansion of being that life curbs and
caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are
dreaming in a world that is immense.'
Extract from Martin Caiger-Smith, METER, Salzburg: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 2013, p. 33

FRAMER DRAWINGS, 2012 2013

The thing for me here is how the 'defining' nature of architectural drawing that suggests an absolute measure of a place
in space can be made free by continuing the delineation. Far from fixing the image, it suggests that the body space is a
possible space within space at large and could be underground, above ground or anywhere. The paradox that in
attempting to 'define' an absolute crystalisation of human space in space, it ends up floating in indeterminacy.
Antony Gormley, 2012.
FEELING MATERIAL, 2001 2012

I think of these drawings as being the most precise mental maps, but also body diagrams. The Feeling Material
drawings are an attempt to evoke the body as a concentration within an energy field evolved in the Clearing drawings
and it strongly relates to some sculptures where insider-like concentrations of highly wrought wire form taut cores at the
centre of increasingly large orbital circuits.
Antony Gormley 2014

BODY, 2009 2011

The time of the work is the time of its arising. The space of the work is the given of the sheet taken as a frame on
infinity. These drawings break the edge and make an evocation of presence through a density in a fugitive field. The
works attempt to render the body as a field and to feel the body not as a knowable object, but a subjective space of
becoming. Emergence and dissolution are equalised. The fugitive nature and the unpredictability of the behaviour of the
pigment and casein, floated on a well-soaked, hand-made linen paper, results in a wide range of reaction between
carbon and water. Each is the result of an experiment in which the elements are allowed to interact with the minimum of
intervention. I keep those that have the right sense of aliveness. The drawings register a moment of lived time, not as an
action but as a state: becoming part of space and time. This is an active dispersion, not the melancholy of entropy, but a
conscious dispersion into endlessness. Without wanting to over-determine the feel of these works, it is an attempt to
unify an internal and external atmosphere. Perhaps weather is the best description of emotion and perhaps there is a way
that emotion itself can become weather. There is a sense of waiting that is connected with presence or the arising of
awareness. The different forms of these drawings surprises and terrifies me. They are about a loss of control and are
made through a loss of control.
As a list, the concerns of the BODY DRAWING series could be as follows:
An evocation of presence.
A test of a bounding condition.
The evidence of an event.
A density within a fugitive field.
The body as a field.
The body as an unknown space.
Aliveness.
The register a moment of lived time.
A state of becoming.
Being part of space and time: a dispersion.
Unifying internal and external.
Emotion as weather.
A register of loss of control and made through a loss of control.
Waiting.
Antony Gormley, 2014.

BODIES IN SPACE, DRAWINGS AND LITHOGRAPHS, 2007 2011

On the drawings: My stretched body makes a shadow within a random field of dropped oil or carbon : a test site.
Antony Gormley, 2014
BREATHING ROOM, 2005 2010

The Breathing Room drawings unusually predate the sculpture of the same name. The most recent drawings in the
series Breathing Room vividly capture something of the effect of the glowing light as it appears in the gallery against
the suddenly plunged darkness of the space. The interconnecting space frames of the installation are created through the
use of lines made with a fine brush dipped in household bleach which removes the ink from its paper support and makes
the negative outlines glow. This device reflects the uncertain terrain of what constitutes the installation: 'The object
hovers between being architecture and being an image of architecture.' The result for the viewer, in both drawings and
installations, is to be caught up in an indeterminacy of perspectival viewpoint.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from DRAWING SPACE, Published by MACRO, 2010

CLEARING, 2006 2009

The [] large CLEARING drawings from 2006-2009 link back especially to the indexical trace that brings them into
being. Each drawing (and there are over one hundred to date) inscribes the reality of a lived moment as the gesture of
the artist's body takes over from the mere hand's touch. In fact, Gormley has referred to these drawings as being "a kind
of choreography for the hand-arm-brain" or "just traces of activity where I'm using my mind-body as a sensor. They're
almost like cardiograms of different vectors." For him, they are also mental diagrams furnished by the body in a fluid
state. CLEARING L, LI AND XLVIII (2006), for example, indicate the release of energy implied. Following the
physical rotation of the arm, they trace a spreading arc which loops in a wide circuit across the paper. Now, however,
rather than being drawn, the fine lines are "carved" by the use of a sharp metal burin, normally used for etching. This
activity exposes the weave of the paper from its pre-washed ground, and the technique is reminiscent of the carved line

made in his early stone sculptures such as SKIN IV (1978) []. The link between etching and drawing, always
malleable, becomes manifest, but here the results are unique and not reproducible. Significantly, in CLEARING 100,
101 and 104 (2009), line is liberated from inscription and the drawing becomes a registering of time as well as
constituting a mark. For the viewer, slowing down time to look allows room for thought concerning the wider
implications of space.
Extract from Anna Moszynska, ANTONY GORMLEY: DRAWING SPACE, Milan: Electa, 2010, pp. 61, 64
HATCH, 2006 - 2007

The Hatch drawings are executed with a burin scratching into the paper, but unlike the Rain series the rapidly scored
marks are rectilinear. These drawings connect nominally to the idea of a drawn mark - 'hatching' being a shading
technique. They are imaginative exercises in spatial alignment which relate to architecture. In terms of their
rectilinearity the Hatch drawings connect most closely to Breathing Room a series of sculptures which began in 2006.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from DRAWING SPACE, Published by MACRO, 2010
TRAJECTORY FIELD, 2001 2003

The TRAJECTORY FIELD drawings [] suggest an increasingly disordered arrangement of parts which follows the
randomness of line found in an early experimental UNTITLED drawing of 1988 where a "trajectory" of the artist's
blood (issuing from the explosion of a capillary embolism on his finger) tracks a sinuous, abstract circuit across the
paper. In the first of these TRAJECTORY FIELD images, the human figure is cleanly blocked-in with black pigment
and appears comfortably suspended in a web that effortlessly supports his weight, visually relating to the QUANTUM
CLOUD sculptures and generically anticipating the later work FERMENT (2007). But although the figure is clearly
recognisable, the web itself is anarchically free-form with no mathematical structure. Progressively in the next two
drawings, the body itself becomes increasingly abstracted until in TRAJECTORY FIELD 22 (2003) it disappears as a
fully recognisable form and instead assumes a curvilinear shape which is attached to a vertical line or wire, akin to the
suspended "abstract" sculpture FEELING MATERIAL XXXVI (2008) with the suspension line that holds it up also
visible. The uncertain outline in these drawings is also caused typically by the technique: experimenting at first with a
small stone dipped in acrylic and later with a ball bearing, Gormley allowed the "ball" to roll on its own across the
paper in such a way that the random lines inevitably curve, drawn by the action of playful happenstance, rather than
being controlled by the hand.
Extract from Anna Moszynska, ANTONY GORMLEY: DRAWING SPACE, Milan: Electa, 2010, pp. 56-56

ANILINE DYE, 1996 2003

Water-dispersed aniline dye became Gormley's favoured drawing medium at the beginning of the new millennium.
Chemically-based, acrid and dangerous, the reddish tint of aniline is reminiscent of the colour in the final stage of
alchemy known as rubedo or iosis (from the Greek root ios meaning poison). The use of this potent substance continues
his investigation into the effects and behaviour of different minerals and chemicals. Dropped on to the paper and then
manipulated by brush, the visual effects caused from aniline range from the veining and spreading in WEB and
CONNECTIONS III to the blotching and washing of PLACENTA. In all the drawings the surface texture is intensely
varied, the chemical producing unforeseen and fugitive effects of immense beauty and mystery - metaphorically
transforming a base substance into gold. The work appears to be struggling with embodiment and disembodiment,
whether in allusions to disease or the creation of matter and its inevitable entropy. Text by Anna Moszynska, from
ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

RANGE OF MEDIA, 1994 2000

Made during the late 1990s, these drawings involve the greatest range of media to date. Different types of varnish are
experimented with - polyurethane giving an opaque, whitish tint, and shellac (derived from the wing cases of beetles)
creating a redder hue. Pigment is now rarely used on it's own but where it was, as in UNDER MY SKIN the figures are
centred on the page, contrasting strongly with the white paper around them. More generally, the pigment is used to form
an effect in which the figure or shape is placed against or sucked into a puddle of poured, coloured varnish. In
CAUGHT the figure, accompanied by a human hair also trapped in the pool of orange varnish, resembles an insect
imprisoned in a piece of amber. Elsewhere, other extraordinary transformations take place as the paper becomes a
charged receptacle receiving unusual tinctures. Soya oil reacts with shellac to create a broken, veining effect in
HYPERTROPHY, HARD SHIT and MATTE. For Gormley, 'the transformation/interpenetration of the fluids' in these
works 'are evocative of biological processes - enzyme, hormone, intercellular incursions. They also allude to the
geological formation of the early rocks from hydrogen clouds'. Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY
DRAWING, Published by The

BERMUDA DRAWINGS, 1998

By the second half of the 1990s, Gormley found that drawing was increasingly becoming something that he would do
while travelling, as this tended to be the only time that he 'could get away from making sculpture'. This sequence of
drawings was made in Bermuda in 1998. During a trip to install a sculpture in the Caribbean island, using the only
drawing paper he could find, Gormley produced these 'fluid, flimsy works.' His free associations touch upon the themes:
'over the edge
under the sea
out in space
beyond the pale.'
When travelling, the artist habitually carries materials with him from home (in this case, pigment) and uses others (here,
tissue paper and copper sulphate) that he finds at hand on site. Creating one drawing after another, he develops an idea
and keeps it going through the momentum of the flow of making in a single intense session of activity.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002
By the second half of the 1990s, Gormley found that drawing was increasingly becoming something that he would do
while travelling, as this tended to be the only time that he 'could get away from making sculpture'. This sequence of
drawings was made in Bermuda in 1998. During a trip to install a sculpture in the Caribbean island, using the only
drawing paper he could find, Gormley produced these 'fluid, flimsy works.' His free associations touch upon the themes:
'over the edge
under the sea
out in space
beyond the pale.'
When travelling, the artist habitually carries materials with him from home (in this case, pigment) and uses others (here,
tissue paper and copper sulphate) that he finds at hand on site. Creating one drawing after another, he develops an idea
and keeps it going through the momentum of the flow of making in a single intense session of activity.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

NEW YORK DRAWINGS, 1997 1998

Increasingly [...] rather than connecting the body to the space of nature (as occurs in the BODY AND LIGHT series),
[Gormley's] later drawings begin to demonstrate an interconnection with a more urban environment, which in turn
affects their form. A couple of tiny works on paper from 1997, DAKOTA I and II, signal this change. Using the familiar
materials of carbon and casein, the vestigial washed body silhouette now becomes over-inscribed by a series of brown
lines which mark up an interrupted grid. Not only does this grid partially obscure the underlying figure (which now
gradually appears to fade away in the watered pigment), it also creates a geometric pattern on the surface of the paper
which, in its spatial composition, can be read as an architectural grille or balustrade set in front of a window, or as
abstract scaffolding. Either way, it is not surprising to find that these urban works, with their rectilinearity operating at a
far remove from the natural, curved forms of the Coniston drawings, were actually made in the Dakota Building on
New York's West Side. The particular rhythm of the city's architecture seems to activate the composition of the grid and
creates new possibilities for the interpenetration of body and space. Certainly the drawings appear to anticipate both the
future concentration on the matrix itself in the GEOMETRY series and Gormley's wider interest in working on
increasingly large scale urban architectural projects.
Extract from Anna Moszynska, ANTONY GORMLEY: DRAWING SPACE, Milan: Electa, 2010, pp. 52-53

RED EARTH, 1987 1998

The drawings in this series are made from red-coloured earth collected originally by the artist from the Lot region in
France and mixed with rabbit skin glue and water. Black pigment is still present - used either to shade in entire areas or

to pick out individual elements within the composition. Some of the imagery imaginatively anticipates encounters with
the desert, the scale and breadth of the outback, the appearance of aboriginal skin painting and spirit dances, as well as
the individual clay forms that would comprise FIELD FOR THE ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, 1989
(his installation of 1,100 small individually fashioned terracotta figurines). The graphic 'imaginings' were made prior to
his first encounter with Australia in 1989. In fact, since his travels in India in the 1970s, Gormley had been seeking to
test his own classic Western frame of reference against other traditions - an impulse that was given further impetus in
the early 1980s by his encounter with Joseph Beuys's notion of a widened field of art and call for an anthropological art.
For Gormley this meant that putting art 'to the practical service' of life in order to 'make something with power'. The use
of earth has a long prehistoric tradition in terms of mark-making, and this ties in with the artist's notion that 'drawing is
a site where something has occurred geologically'. The drawings are thus a powerful repository of thought and
reflection in terms of both historical and pre-historical concerns. Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY
DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002
COLLAGES, 1997

In 1997, Gormley made a series of forty-three collages, assembled from postcards, newsprint or photographs adhered
with PVA. Additional drawing was executed in charcoal, pencil or pigment with the occasional use of soya oil, olive oil,
white varnish, liquin and Tippex. The artist describes the series as, 'loose assemblies making loose associations'.
Themes include walking and landscape; the feminine principle and the spirit world; the disembodied brain; astronomy,
astrology and flight; ecology and palaeontology; body-space and the 'second skin'. A number include homages to other
artists or their works; Pablo Picasso and Mantegna are shown here, while Goya and more contemporary artists are
referenced elsewhere in the series. The use of collage opens up further sets of possibilities, allowing the artist to make
free associations, to use found or imagined things, to experiment with the 'frame' of architecture and drawing, to
acknowledge the work of other artists and art forms and to explore 'parallel worlds'.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

PARAFFIN, 1997

The fluid distillation derived from petroleum is mixed with blue and black pigment, sometimes offset by a more
concentrated black pigment and by a generous pouring of soya oil which acts as an aureole around the central grey
areas. Themes of spirit and materialisation come to the fore here as the spreading fluid creates ambiguous, haunting
shapes within each drawing. The initial idea behind this series was a 'yoke or an area of potential surrounded by
albumen or life-giving power. Drawing, pigment and medium are presented as independent agents, echoing conscious,
matter and the living body.' Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The
British Museum Press, 2002

CHICORY COFFEE, 1995 1996

By the mid 1990s, Gormley was experimenting with chicory coffee substitute as a medium, a liquid material with a
strong colour and pungent smell. More fluid than linseed oil, more akin to watercolour, its rich coloration and
propensity to either dot or puddle in dark tones when tipped over the paper in liquid form is very apparent. As with
some of the blood drawings of the early 1990s, Gormley uses the material singularly, without charcoal or additional
pigment. Being less viscous, the chicory is easier to control and consequently results in the clear outlines for the
blocked-in figure compositions found here. More often than not the figure is now clearly juxtaposed against the ground,
but a sense of fluidity is still suggested by different fields 'touching, bleeding, osmosing' at intervals across each image.
In the works such as ACROSS and CHANNEL the fields encroach upon the external integrity of the body, partially
obscuring it from view, but in TAKE CARE and YOU KNOW their effect is confined to the interior of each figure,
suggesting the potential viral contamination of aids. Some of the multi-figural drawings in this series relate to previous
sculptural ideas. LEARNING TO THINK (AGAIN) for example, seems to be a meditation on the suspended five figure
lead ensemble which he made four years earlier.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

10

BODY AND LIGHT, 1990 1996

As Gormley found himself increasingly on the move, he resorted to small sheets of Somerset Weave torn into sixteenths
for greater portability. The black pigment and casein was now dispersed in water to create a washed effect, similar to
watercolour. Some of the finely outlined images from 1994 unusually employ pen as well as brush. Most of the
drawings were made in the Lake District, at a house on Coniston Water which the Gormley's have visited regularly
since 1984. Like the Ardpatrick images, some are redolent of specific places; here the garden, trees, barn and fields
surrounding the house. This time the landscape is sensed at night with the nocturnal growth patterns of plants
graphically imagined. Other sequences evoke the sensation of floating, diving or swimming through the depths of
Coniston Water. In this important series, light now plays a major role, acting as 'mirror' in relation to 'the weight of the
ground or body'. The water-dispersed medium allows for greater fluidity and an accompanying sense of illusionism. The
style freely veers from the flat or 'diagrammatic' to the 'participatory/romantic', as the graphic, principally black and
white, nature of drawing is investigated and its 'almost limitless possibilities' celebrated. Just as depth is explored, so
also is the notion of 'going places in the drawing which are not possible in life or sculpture - outer space or deep water'.
This delving into depth also allows for imaginative penetration into macroscopic or microscopic.
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2000

SAN ANTONIO DRAWINGS, 1995

These drawings are derived from a suite of twelve individual works which were made and exhibited in San Antonio,
Texas, in 1995. The suite was made in response to a residency invitation from the ArtPace organisation during late
December 1994 and early January 1995. Gormley used this time as an opportunity to work in a free yet focused manner
on his drawing while also responding to the particular features which seemed to characterise the local place - the
relationship of the river, railway and road; the weather fronts; the transmissions of cargo and migrations; the flatness,
openness and presence of the sky. In an interview with Annette DiMeo Carlozzi in July that year, he explained the

11

whole project as 'an attempt to undermine dualistic thinking - the idea that here is part of there, in being everywhere - an
idea of making the distance intimate, recognising that notions of identity and place can be defined by ideas of horizon'.
While the images in the drawings reflect ongoing concerns that had previously occupied the artist - such as 'describing
the limits of physical space which can then be used by the viewer to test conceptual limits' or 'making an attempt to
orient the body in space' - the materials used to make them indicate the extent of his experimentation and interests at
this time. Certain substances, like a slice of melon, sit entirely on the surface of the paper, some are absorbed within it
(oil), and others sit amongst the paper's fibres (charcoal). CENTRE was made from a brand of bottled pimento
Louisiana sauce. Besides the attraction of the colour, the bottle appealed as 'an ejaculatory implement, you could shake
it and it would spurt and make a trajectory through the air before it became paint'. In these respects, the series as a
whole epitomises Gormley's entire approach by this point. 'For me, drawing isn't about making pictures, it is about
testing ideas and testing materials as well.' He has since described the period as 'a time to concentrate on drawing. What
these drawings try and do is codify, diagrammatise, isolate my concerns with space and image in drawing with the
drawing as an event - a splash, a moment captured and focused by the "frame" of drawing.'
Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002
BODILY FLUIDS, 1986 1992

Gormley's use of his own bodily fluids as a medium for drawing spanned a number of years, from the mid-1980s
through to the early 1990s. To Gormley, blood and semen are life materials which in their giving imply sacrifice.
Thresholds are crossed 'between inner and outer and between celebration and pollution'. That which has been removed
from the body is nonetheless memorialised in the work: 'pain and pleasure, the putrefied and the sublimated'. The
membrane of the paper is seen as a place of becoming, of both form and meaning. In the transfer of such particularly
resonant fluids, the drawing becomes the site of new life, possibility and energy. The first drawing in this series,
UNTITLED, 1988 employs a jet of blood that spontaneously issued from a burst capillary on the artist's left middle
finger to create an abstract trail across the paper. In others, puddles or drips of blood and/or semen are allowed to fall
upon moistened paper, creating an explosive, cosmic effect. Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY
DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

LINSEED OIL WORKS, 1985 1990

12

This extensive group of works from the second half of the 1980s sees the dominance of the warm, honey tones of
linseed. Released from its conventional role as binder and operating as a free agent, the linseed oil often tends visually
to dominate the smaller areas of black pigment and charcoal or is used as a coloured stain or broken ground against
which the black elements are drawn. The oil, dropped from the bottle onto the paper in small dots or left to puddle on
the surface, creates a free-form shape against which further images appear. In many instances, the density of the oil
soaks through the support, making the texture particularly viscous and tactile and creating a warm aroma that saturates
the paper. The element of chance involved in the pouring of the oil allows for greater freedom than was possible in the
tighter application of many of the earlier pigmented works, while the yellow-orange coloration of the linseed coincides
with the colour found in Gormley's cast-iron sculptures of this period (1987-8). The imagery itself also becomes more
free-form. Floating figures and amoeba-like shapes suggest shifting states of becoming, while coupled pairs and
embryonic forms reflect ideas of gestation which inevitably came to mind as Gormley's young family was completed
with the arrival of his third child Paloma in 1987. Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING,
Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

BLACK PIGMENT, OIL & CHARCOAL, 1984 1989

These black pigment, oil and charcoal drawings made between 1985 and 1988 and generally on a smaller scale, were
executed on a heavy density etching paper, Somerset Weave, which Gormley first discovered as a support in 1984 and
which he has consistently used since. Large sheets of paper were folded and torn to scale, either in quarters, sixteenths
or more generally, as in this case, eighths. Either way, the uneven edges were left uncut, complementing the coarse but
highly atmospheric ground texture provided by the dense weave of the paper. This highly productive period in
Gormley's drawing career when he found himself working, sometimes 'for hours at a stretch in a frenzy', is
characterised generally by a pervasive blackness. The first drawings were made while staying near Tintagel, a historical,
windswept shoreline in north Cornwall, mythically connected by its castle to the legend of King Arthur. The imagery of
hot rock pools, seascape, sheer cliff and night sky relates specifically to the place and suggests its very particular
atmosphere. The rest of the drawings were made in the drawing room of a new studio converted from an old laundry in
Peckham, South London. The physical darkness of these drawings contributes to a melancholic gravitas in terms of
atmosphere and tone, paralleling the dark interior of Gormley's lead sculptures. Text by Anna Moszynska, from
ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002

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IVO COLLABORATION, 1984

These large, landscape-format drawings made principally on the wall in pencil with some traces of pastel and charcoal,
were produced in Peckham when the artist was looking after his toddler son. The infant Ivo would scribble on the page
alongside his father. Gormley, having drawn the main image, would choose a title, write it out as a single word along
the base of the drawing, then add selections from a dictionary definition in pencil. While the choice of the individual
words appears significant in terms of his developing sculptural concerns, it also reflects Gormley's haiku-inspired
writing practice seen in the texts and word chains of his sketchbooks at this time, and in some of his later published
pieces. The preference for short single-word titles is reflected in several of the lead sculptures of this period which have
similar names, including Lift (1983), Rise (1983-4), Peer (1984) and Proof (1984). It is noticeable how some of these
'collaborative' drawings include nature in a very direct way - squashed butterfly wings or mouth imprints on the paper,
prefiguring the use of unusual or idiosyncratic natural and chemical substances in later drawings. In reflecting upon the
series, Gormley comments: 'I loved the whole playing aspect of the drawings - Ivo doodling and chatting, [me following
a] stream of consciousness and getting flashes of image from this and the traces on the paper. It was as if drawing was a
recorded conversation but free of logic, just playing'. Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY
DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002.

EARLY DRAWINGS, 1980 1984

Dating from 1981 to 1983, these drawings are characterised by a fluid charcoal outline. Thick, heavy black pigment is mixed with
linseed oil and vigorously applied to the surface with a hogshair brush. The drawings involve a very physical engagement, the wall
acting as a hard, resilient surface to push against. They cover a transitional time in Gormley's career, including a period of living in a
squatted house in King's Cross, following his marriage to the artist, Vicken Parsons, and then from 1982 onwards, the move to a new
home in Peckham, South London, after the arrival of their first son, Ivo. The drawings are made in the domestic environment, the
human subject coinciding with the first lead figures Gormley casts from his own body such as THREE WAYS (1981), also made in
the King's Cross room, and LAND, SEA AND AIR (1982). As a whole, the sequence incorporates some of the first drawings the
artist felt content with. 'Up to this point,' he reflects, 'drawing had been a matter of recording people and places, although I had
always wanted them to be more. This is the background to what art could be and was not yet for me: the origination of things, not a
reaction to the world and its contents.' Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British
Museum Press, 2002

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