Jerwood Drawing Prize 2003
Until February 21; Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art

The organisers of the Jerwood Drawing Prize openly admit – indeed positively boast – that their annual shortlist is prey to changing fashions in the world of art, and to the personal preferences of their selectors. Not only does each year’s panel have to whittle over 2000 entries down to 73, but they must also define the boundaries of drawing itself.

Glasgow artist Ken Currie, one of the judges for 2003, has taken the hardline view – “drawing is something you do on a bit of paper with a mark-making medium” – end of story. He rails against the prevailing view that drawing is a thing of the past, not to be encouraged, and he suspects that better-known artists have chosen not to participate for fear of stunting their glittering careers by putting pencil to paper.

Currie’s influence in the selection process is clear. The shortlisted works are almost all monochromatic, with a strong sense of motivation, whether it be social, political or theoretical. Powerful charcoal drawings are to the fore, and indeed, it is one of these – Snatch, by London painter Paul Brandford – which has won the prize.

This Goya-esque clash of human bodies is taken from a newspaper photograph of riot police homing in on one grim-faced individual, but the interpretation is far from literal. Energy streaks through every line, and the central figure is a disembodied head surrounded by anonymous helmeted police, their arms like spears thrust into the lone protagonist.

William Feaver, another of the judges, was bemused by the quantity of “high heels garnished with glitter” which were entered into the competition. None of them got through, thank goodness, but Julie Held’s pen and ink wash of a shoe shop did. This delightful little sketch has something of Rembrandt about it, with two perfectly balanced figure groups speedily rendered from memory. Memory plays a key role for many of the artists, according to their statements in the beautifully produced catalogue which accompanies the exhibition.

While the show features a variety of approaches to drawing, some identifiable strands do seep through. There is, for example, a number of pseudo-technical drawings which subvert the objective nature of the discipline as a means to different ends. Martin Spanyol’s Morning Chorus is a meticulous and decorative depiction of 50 songbirds eating and excreting 50 worms. Delicately pencilled grid-lines circumscribe the wireframe creatures, evenly spaced out on the prepared canvas. The effect is technically and aesthetically beautiful, and at the same time exquisitely pointless: technical drawing for technical drawing’s sake, perhaps.

At the opposite end of the scale, there are one or two examples of what I have in the past called the Scribble Aesthetic – a nihilistic drawing style which has recently taken hold at Glasgow School of Art. Fiona Robertson’s satire on art school life, riddled with dreams, nightmares and board-game allusions, is typical of this trend.

I wish I could tell you about every single drawing in the show; I forgot I was in a hurry and like a slow-moving snail on a busy highway, I spent hours in the exhibition, oblivious to the bustle of art students behind me as I lingered at each image. The key word here is quality. No gimmicks, no glitter, just quality. And that’s a thing that is frighteningly easy to forget about in this fast-moving world of contemporary art consumption.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 18.01.04