Geothermal Site, c. 2014-15
pencil on paper, 60.5 x 51 cm
Carol Rhodes Estate. On view at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, 2 February – 5 May 2024
The drawing is where I put together different elements from photographs, sometimes my own, but often from books and the internet. The drawing is traced onto the board before I start to paint. The coloured pencil lines are there for pragmatic reasons, so I can see where I’ve already traced through; and I use a new colour when I go back and make changes. But the colours are not random – I’m just as particular about which ones I choose as I am about any other element. The paper is usually thin and smooth; I’m not interested in having surface texture or variety of marks. I like the drawing to be plain, so I can see what I’ve got.
Each drawing is a cartoon for its painting. Not every drawing stands up as a work in its own right, and none of them has been made with the intention of exhibiting. (It’s only in recent years I’ve started to show drawings.) Some just perform as they were meant to do – to make the skeleton for the painting. There is not necessarily a correlation between a drawing that ‘works’ and the success of its related painting. Of course the paintings are much more complex, and once I’m working on one it can depart from its drawing, in composition and in details.
Carol Rhodes. Artist’s notes for the exhibition Survey at MAC Belfast, 2018