The Anatomy of a Cardboard Box - exhibition in Dunblane, Perthshire

Inside Out and Upside Down - the anatomy of a cardboard box

2nd to 29th April, 2016

"This is an excellent exhibition and deserves recognition"  Comment by a visitor to the gallery


In an exhibition of new drawings at Dunblane Museum Gallery, I explored the shapes, shadows and corners suggested by everyday packaging material.  This work is based on my interest in these discarded fragments of our contemporary life, and the associations and stories, not to mention the beautiful shapes and shadows, that I see in these objects.

I  experimented with a particular approach to making art, consciously moving from concept to making and back again, as described by Donald Schon in his book “The Reflective Practitioner”.  The trigger in this case is a piece of packaging material that is quite architectural in nature.  This also picks up on my interest in and research into architectural space, and gives me a framework for the process.

I experimented with Schon’s ideas by shifting between by making drawings of the carton (from different angles, in different media and from different distances)  and pausing to reflect on what I was trying to say and  what was emerging, with reference to my personal reactions and to the work of other artists and writers. I thus tried to bridge the gap between ideas and making, and this is the purpose of the exhibition.  I have discovered that the drawing process gave me much more insight into ideas and that the ideas broadened the range of possibilities and gave me an on-going structure to work with.  In other words, it gave me a frame of wider reference.

I continued my research in this topic for sometime afterwards, visiting educational seminars and summer schools.  I will resume and hope to continue the work.