Drawing inspiration: Biro art takes centre stage at With/Draw exhibition

Biro drawing by Sarah Muirhead

Scottish painter and draughtsman Sarah Muirhead will be returning to East London this month to spearhead a group exhibition that focuses on drawing.

With/Draw at Leyden Gallery takes drawing as the quintessential starting point from which ideas develop into larger or more complex work.

The artists participating in the exhibition all use drawing in diverse ways, from the immediacy of life-drawing to detailed preparatory studies.

Christine Taylor Patten’s drawings evolve from a single dot in a space, whilst collages by Victoria Coster attempt to anthropomorphise the sound of tinnitus in the ears, giving form to the formless.

The city is the main source of inspiration for artists Marc Gooderham and Nicholas Borden, who draw using pastel, chalk or pencil. Life drawing group Nude for Thought will also be displaying a selection of its work, which explores the male form.

Sarah Muirhead, whose solo show at Leyden Gallery last year revealed the artist’s own fascination with the physicality and spirit of the body – it’s potential for pain as well as pleasure – will be displaying a selection of anatomical biro drawings.

“Drawing is honest and intuitive and, for me, the most intimate way of recording or examining a subject,” explains the 29-year-old artist.

“It lays bare your most fundamental skills as an artist. I think that paintings are transformative and take you somewhere new but drawing shows you the identity and, to some extent, the neuroticism and thought process of the creator.”

“It’s fascinating that people doodle to relieve stress, record and recover from trauma and explain tactical ideas and scientific theory by drawing. There’s something integral in the way we think and the fact that we make these marks.”

With/Draw, 6–16 July, Leyden Gallery, Leyden Street, E1 7LE
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Biro drawing by Sarah Muirhead

Biro drawing by Sarah Muirhead