H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_I_N_G ‘Postcards for Seyðisfjörður’
Impression from Brighton to Seyðisfjörður (Side by Side), 2025
Duncan Bullen, pencil on a given postcard.
Impression from Brighton to Seyðisfjörður (Side by Side) consists of ruled lines drawn over two given postcards and is my response to the invitation from Hard Painting to send a postcard ‘of itself to itself but altered’.
My intervention involves placing each postcard on an irregular surface in my Brighton studio and drawing horizontal lines using a pencil and a straightedge.
Drawing lines over an uneven surface results in a physical and visible disruption through indenting, embossing, and rupturing the surface of the original image. Correspondingly, the back of the postcard holds traces and indents, vying for equal status to the front. The process leaves an impression of the site where it was created and evidences the simple action of drawing ruled lines.
On both postcards, the lines are drawn on the front and back, but with inverse rulings to form a pair. Both postcards should be exhibited together, side by side. One (A) with the front image facing outwards and the other (B) with the back facing outwards.
I am delighted to share that my chapter, Mind Like Water: Drawing the Still Point is now available in Drawing in Health and Wellbeing: Marks, Signs and Traces, edited by Philippa Lyon and Curie Scott, published by Bloomsbury. In this chapter, I focus on a body of drawings that began in 2012 and have been taken up intermittently ever since. These drawings consist of ruled horizontal lines made by marking the paper's surface with pencils of different tonal gradations or colours in ordered sequences. Each drawing is designed so that each part mirrors and echoes itself using both symmetrical and asymmetrical proportions and ratios. The chapter outlines how regular, methodical, and structured mark-making contributes to my health and well-being, and how creating drawings based on a repetitive process helps me stay focused and maintain stability.
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Drawing has an established history within medicine for learning, recording, investigating and discovery. Bringing together diverse drawing approaches in the form of research and practical projects, this book demonstrates how drawing has extended beyond the realm of medicine with relevance and value for a wide spectrum of health and wellbeing settings.
Curie Scott is an independent education consultant specializing in arts and health, based in the UK. After working as a medical doctor, she transitioned into Higher Education. Previously, she worked at Arts University Bournemouth, UK and Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. She is an award-winning educator for creative learning practices and holds a PhD in thinking through drawing. She is also the author of Drawing: Arts for Health (2021).
Philippa Lyon leads drawing, health and wellbeing research at the University of Brighton, UK, where she teaches on the MA Craft and MA Textiles and supervises PhD students. She has publications on the history of art education, design education approaches, and on applications of drawing within educational, health and wellbeing contexts. She has published work in The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods (2019) and journals such as the International Journal of Art and Design Education and Visual Methodologies. She also completed her PhD on British Second World War poetry in 2005.
Saturation Point | Salon 33
Duncan Bullen | For the Time Being
Saturation Point is pleased to announce an exhibition by the artist Duncan Bullen. This is his first solo exhibition exclusively of drawings and his first one-person show in the UK in two decades.
The works on display comprise a selection of drawings made between 2021-2025 and focus on Bullen’s examination of compositional methods that utilise grids and geometries alongside slow, meditative, tactile mark-making.
Some drawings consist entirely of points created with a graphite pencil, resulting in images that suggest circularity and hover at the edge of perception. In other works, the drawn points are connected by thin lines of silver pencil, allowing for an exploration of volumetric geometry, where lines appear to recede or protrude on the visual field. Further works investigate lines drawn with a straightedge on paper placed over an uneven substrate, so each line reveals irregular traces and puncturing of the paper.
When drawing, Bullen dwells close to and moves slowly across the drawing surface, allowing him to be attentive to the singularity of every drawn gesture activated by an intimate relationship between hand and eye, mind and body, resulting in a heightened conception of time taken, bodily rhythm, and the alignment of drawing with the artist’s breathing. Several visits to Japan and Korea deepened his interest in a practice that uses repetitive and reductive strategies to explore and communicate spatial understanding and tactility through surface, mark, measure, and arrangement.
With each drawing, Bullen seeks a correlation between a system of organisation, the hand-drawn mark, and the drawn breath. Each represents a search for a visually and emotionally grounded practice involving moment-to-moment, mindful awareness and experiential, sensorial looking.
Saturation Point Projects curates exhibitions and events that explore reductive, geometric and systems practices in contemporary British art.
THE 7TH JOHN RUSKIN EXHIBITION
“From the eye to the hand”
Visual literacy charity The Big Draw, together with the Prize founders and sponsors, The Guild of St George, announced the shortlist for The 7th John Ruskin Prize.
Selected from nearly 3000 entries, the shortlist, which called for artists to explore the theme ‘From the Eye to the Hand’ will be exhibited in January 2025 at Trinity Buoy Wharf. A total of 87 works by 85 artists, makers and innovators were selected by Andrew Nairne OBE: Director, Kettles Yard, Prof Anita Taylor: Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee, Charles.O.Job: Architect and designer, Nichola Johnson OBE FSA: a Director of the Guild of St George, Emma Stibbon RA: Artist & Royal Academician.
The 7th John Ruskin Prize exhibition, “From the Eye to the Hand”, will open to the public at
The Buoy Store, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London E14 0JW
Thursday 16th January to Sunday 2nd February 2025
11am and 6pm each day. Free entry
A fully illustrated publication and public engagement programme will accompany the exhibition. Visit Trinity Buoy Wharf website for detailed venue directions.
Shortlisted artists 2025
William Alexander, Viv Allen, Steven Anderson, David Atkinson, Andrew Baldwin, Sally Baldwin, Jeanette Barnes, Kate Birss, Chris Blackburn, Vera Boele-Keimer, Sarah Bold, Duncan Brown, Chris Bruce, Kurt Buckley, Duncan Bullen, Lesley Bunch, Diana Burch, Caroline Burraway, Eric Butcher, Hermione Carline, Romaya Carole, Sarah Casey, David Cass, Francesca Centioni, Jack Clare, Victoria Clare Bernie, Julia Complin, David Connearn, Katy Cook, Emma Coop, Cicely Creswell, Aleksandra Czuja, Gerry Davies, Bryn Davies, Sarah Duncan, Hanfei Dyson, Angela Eames, Elisha Enfield, Miriam Escofet, Michael Geddis, Alice Goehrs, Melanie Goemans, Emilia Gonzalez, Arina Gordienko, Nick Grellier, Lydia Halcrow, Paul Hart, Julie Heaton, Sara Heywood, Harriet Mena Hill, Meg Huby, Jo Israel, Owen Johnson, Oli Kellett, Joanne Lamb, Anthony Lau, CJ Lim, M.Lohrum, Imogen Long, Karen Lorenz, Hannah MacCaig, Shona Macdonald, Ian Malhotra, Siobhan Martin, Lyndsay Martin, Carali McCall, Rosemarie McGoldrick, Myrna Mitchell, James Moore, David Mumby, Jenene Nagy, Hormazd Narielwalla, Robyn Neild, Nancy Nightingale, Eamon O'Kane, Samuel Owusu Achiaw, Tim Parry-Williams, Julie Pereira, Catherine Pink, Kathryn Poole, Klaudyna Rajchel, Sandra Richard, Jin Suk Kim, Laura White, and Pippa Young
Still Way No 6, pencil on drawing board 60x60cm 2023
Lines of Empathy
Patrick Heide Contemporary Art
Curated by Giulia Ricci
Fay Ballard | Duncan Bullen | Lucinda Burgess | Helen Cass | Rachel Duckhouse | Mary Griffiths | Simon Hitchens | Louise Hopkins | Carali McCall | Onya McCausland | Anna Mossman | David Murphy | Peter Peri | Kathy Prendergast | Giulia Ricci | Wendy Smith | Kate Terry
Lines of Empathy is a group show bringing together hand-drawn work on paper by 17 mid-career and established artists working in Britain today. The artworks in the exhibition are the subject of a new artist’s book, bearing the same title of the show, produced by the Italian, London-based, artist Giulia Ricci between 2020 and 2022.
Exhibition dates: 2-25 February 2023
Opening: Wednesday 1st February 2023, 6-8pm
Book launch: Saturday 25th February 2023, 3-5pm