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Ingrid Andersen |
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Robert Grey – Self-Portrait in Charcoal
I sit in my studio, my tools haphazard around me, and the timber in the house sighs quietly with the onset of night. Somewhere outside the wind is playing dervish with the cold rain; first pressing it into the ground, and then keeping it aloft in endless spirals. She tries in vain to press her fingers under the door and between the cracks in the weatherboards, but I know she can’t enter, so I ignore her. Inside I sit and stare at my canvas, a plain sheet of white A1 cartridge paper. It sits lightly on the old easel, comfortable in its plainness and its white edges. My eyes begin to wander methodically from its top to its bottom, searching for a place to begin, and I try to project something onto the space. Page-fright sets in. I move through image after image in my mind, scanning line after line until the whiteness of the paper grows to the only thing I can see. In the whiteness there is silence, though. I don’t know how long I wander here, shedding time and space, but I know I am searching for something. The further I wander the more the whiteness turns to shade in a slow softening of the light, and in that mist I sense a childish fear. Through the fog comes a minor chord, breaking quiet with its sadness, and I finally see myself. Balled-up and hunched against the shadows I look into my own eyes and they leak to me a quiet admission. As the wind continues to rattle at my door I know I have found what I need. I lift my charcoal and press it to the paper, each line lending strength to my resolve, and reminding me of what I am.
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