A labyrinth of ideas about sight and perception opened with the unlikely imposition of black ink over fully drawn portraits. Surfacing from my larger abstracted and mercurial ink drawings which, in part, play with formal aspects of drawing: aesthetics, composition, gesture, and what ink does when it saturates the paper, these portraits speak to visual perception. The sitters are students and colleagues who are partially sighted and blind. Because the portrait drawing comes first, the risk of ruin, as I relinquish it over to obstruction by ink, is un-nerving and calls into question the loss of sight in terms of the sitter and what we are permitted to see.

Though my large abstract ink drawings are not about visual perception, they address the tactile nature of the drawing process, and tactility is an opportunity for perception. I am so close to the paper during this process that I am nearly in the ink: seeing it shine, then become matte, soaking, and finally sinking into the paper. In some strokes the ink becomes so saturated that it forms a pooled surface with craters and a salt-like texture. I detect the scent of the ink, earthy and rich, and reminiscent of soil. The jarring slap of the initial hit of ink on the paper or the softer dragging sound as I pull or push the ink around are the percussive aspects of this drawing process. 

I cannot view the entire work while I am making it. Only when I disengage from the drawing process can I widen my view to see it fully. Until then I have partial visual perception, rather like the sitters and the viewers of my obstructed portraits.