The Animate Objects #2 exhibition opens tomorrow afternoon. I may add a never-before-seen piece of work, ready for the opening.
Here are a few pictures of the show…

Standing in front of my rucksack drawings.

This is my rucksack, one that I carry around with me a lot of the time. Perhaps it’s more accurate for me to call it my manbag? Because of a nut allergy I should carry around a few pills and potions, but often I fail to, as it’s rather cumbersome. Most of my life I’ve had some sort of a bag, which I’ve used to carry around odds and ends, including a book and, invariably, bits of paperwork I need to process. After spending so much time drawing this rucksack I realised how much I’ve come to associate it with myself. I’ve anthropomorphized my bag. It’s a very human thing to do, and something I do each time I draw an object. As with my other drawings I used black oil pastel on paper, which I’ve then glued to card and cut-out to give a three-dimensional effect; which I hope brings some of the physical characteristics of objects back to the drawings, otherwise drawings can have a habit of looking rather flat.

Drawing in my studio.

I always work from life. I feel very uncomfortable working from memory, photographs or imagination. I’m not always completely conscious of what I’m creating; I try to stay loyal to what I see without glamorising or romanticising. Drawing a rucksack in my studio, using a black oil pastel on paper. I work with oil pastels and oil bars, which are effectively pieces of oil paint and take a long time to dry. I’ve tried many drawing materials and oild pastel is best at producing a dark solid line. Graphite seems to produce only a weak grey line and marker pens don’t have the depth of oil pastel which raises up off of the page. I try to increase this effect by mounting the drawings on card and then cutting them out.

Cut-out drawings of objects by Paul Doeman. 13th – 22nd August Wednesday – Sunday 12-6pm You’re an animate object, a sum of many parts. Just like a rucksack, chair or ladder you can be taken apart. What is it to be an object? Is what something is just the product of its many functions? Animate objects was the name of an exhibition I put on in 1998; this show is named  ”Animate objects #2″ with a view to continuing some of those ideas. Life-size drawings in oil pastel on paper and cut-out, dance and show-off the personalities of some of the objects that surround us. The exhibition is at 242 gallery, 242 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9DA. Closest Tube: Bethnal Green.  National railway: Cambridge Heath station. View Larger Map

Animate Objects #2 Exhibition

Drawings of a collapsible chair - drawn with oil pastel on paper, cut-out and mounted on cardboard.

These speedball drawings continue the boxing theme.  The speedball was bought on eBay and drawn in various stages of decomposition.
This speedball was designed to be fastened to the ceiling and floor via two rubber lines and small leather straps.

I’m completing two pieces of work for my forthcoming exhibition. A much larger studio space is allowing me to better organise my work; I can get a good distance from it and see my drawings as objects again.

I’ve been drawing with oil pastel on paper, which gives me a fast way of making a solid mark, it also means I have to be careful not to make any mistakes as the pastel is very difficult to remove from the paper. After speaking with a painter in a neighbouring studio I’m going to try treating the paper to seal it, that’ll likely influence the way I draw a little, I won’t need to worry about errors, which can be wiped away.

This picture of me posing in front of the work should hopefully give you a better idea of its scale. There’s some more organisation of the separate drawings to be done, then it’ll be finished.

As I get a chance to look at the work in a larger space I’m reminded of why I

made it; I’m interested in enjoying reality for what it is, rather than attempting to create a fiction. I strongly believe that we are surrounded by the most valuable and amazing objects and situations, which we cast aside or don’t even notice, in a pursuit of a more imaginary world.

Isn’t It Enough to See That a Garden Is Beautiful Without Having to Believe That There Are Fairies at the Bottom of It Too? – Douglas Adams.

Rather than being a sign of character, an interest in the meaning of life or a rich imagination, isn’t an interest in the supernatural and celebrity actually a sign of people wishing to escape? Whilst there can be much that we find uncomfortable in the real world there ‘s  already more surrounding us right now that is beyond our imagination and worthy of our attention.

Never have we had so much and never have we taken so little notice of it.