ERIC ABAKA: DRAWING WITHOUT LOOKING: WHOLLY DRAWING AS PERCEPTUAL PRACTICE

MONDAY 20 JULY, 15:30 - 15:55 

Lecture Room 2

The talk will introduce my research concept of Objectively Subjective Drawing, where rigour is understood as a disciplined commitment to rendering what is perceptually present in the moment of encounter, rather than reproducing what is expected, remembered, corrected, or stylistically controlled. I will briefly discuss how Wholly Drawing challenges realism-dominant approaches to observational drawing by shifting value from the polished artefact to the perceptual, embodied, and reflective process of drawing.

The workshop will invite participants to complete a short Wholly Drawing exercise. Participants will draw a subject continuously while looking only at the subject, without looking down at the paper as they draw. This method interrupts the habit of correcting, judging, and controlling the image while it is being made. Instead, it asks participants to trust the act of looking and allow perception to guide the hand.

This session connects to the residency theme of social modalities by treating drawing as a shared, embodied, and relational practice. Rather than positioning drawing as an individual display of skill, the workshop creates a temporary social space where participants collectively examine attention, vulnerability, perception, uncertainty, and the conditions through which knowledge is produced through practice.