Chiral Drawings

The Chiral drawings began as an attempt to make a drawing using every single pen, pencil, crayon, colored pencil and marker I own. I scoured each drawer, surface and even the car console for writing implements. Once I had gathered them I decided to limit the expression to the simplest gesture: a line. Each subsequent line, made with a different implement used only once, follows the previous. As the drawing builds, the lines swiftly begin to tremble with a seismic quality, recording the history of the mark making, as well as the history of a household.

In the interest of making a “whole” drawing, and in thinking about the body, I decided to use both my left hand and my right hand. The word “chiral” refers to a non-superimposable mirror image. Our hands themselves are an example of chirality.

As I was making these I was also thinking about the notion of the copy, the reproduction of an image. Each set of drawings is an imperfect mirror image, and a suggestion of the impossibility of making the same thing twice. – RP